Fade (2005)

Mills, Kyle

Published:

2010

Fade Kyle Mill s *

Synopsis:

A secret wing of US Homeland Security is recruiting agents to wor k undercover in the Middle East, and the director wants hi s second-in-command, Matt Egan, to bring aboard an old friend.

Salam Al Fayed - "Fade' is perfect. An ex-Navy Seal, he is the son o f immigrants and speaks Arabic like a native. But Fade's retired.

Embittered and alone, he's not too fond of anyone in the government.

Least of all his ex-best friend, Matt Egan.

Against Egan's wishes, the director tries to persuade Fade to join th e team. But Fade, angry and hopeless, is prepared to fight back at an y cost. The chase is on: will Matt be able to find hi s friend-turned-fugitive before Fade can take the ultimate revenge?

Kyle Mills's new thriller is a powerful, take-no-prisoners read from a writer at the height of his talen t PROinGUF

The few people visible in the street seemed to have no purpose othe r than to kick up dust that then hung in the air like smoke. They had n o bags of groceries, no hangers draped with recently cleaned clothing, n o impulsively purchased toys for their kids. They weren't exchangin g gossip with friends or gazing into the village's nonexistent window s for interesting diversions. The overall impression was of rat s temporarily flushed into the open and anxious to return to a dark , cramped space where the illusion of safety could conjure.

Salam al Fayed skirted along a broken rock wall, stopping before h e reached a section that had been scattered by a mortar shell to squa t down in the shade. The sun in that part of the world was strangel y malignant. Unable to provide warmth in the thin, dry air, it jus t burned and sapped the strength of everything beneath it. Al Faye d pulled a goatskin water bladder from beneath his robes and watched th e people in the street adjust their trajectory to give him as wide a berth as possible. They would see him as just another of the countles s dangerous men who roamed the region promoting instability, starvation , and senseless violence. In a way, they were right.

He stared malevolently at anyone who didn't actively look away, dar k eyes partially obscured by a tattered headdress. His Arabic wa s excellent, but it would instantly identify him as a foreigner if h e were forced to open his mouth. Whether anyone would correctly plac e the accent as being from New York was hard to say. Best not to fin d out.

The water tasted of animal musk and mud, stinging his cracked lips an d setting him to calculating exactly what he'd be willing to pay for som e cherry-flavored SPF 30 Chapstick. And a shower. And a drink with ic e in it. He managed to stop a thin smile from spreading far enough t o start his lips bleeding again. At twenty-six, he was already gettin g downright delicate.

A rare combination of perfect weather, overly pessimistic intelligence , and sterling luck had allowed him to add four more corpses to th e thousands already littering the countryside two hours ahead o f schedule. Unfortunately, the Middle East was a bit short on Starbuck s a situation the U. S. was no doubt eager to remedy so he couldn't g o wash off the blood in a tidy little bathroom and then linger over a toffee nut latte. That left him nothing to do but squat there silentl y threatening the locals and picking goat hairs from his teeth. j oin the navy, the recruiting poster had said, see the world. He'd thought they meant Hawaii.

A long semiretirement on a quiet island was starting to look better an d better. Despite this operation going off perfectly, he'd fel t something strange the minute his feet had hit the sand. Predictably , it was quickly lost in the unwavering focus his profession demanded , but now he had a few minutes to examine it. Doubt. The truth was , this mission had the unmistakable feel of one too many. His luck ha d peaked and was now in the process of running out.

Or maybe that quiet sense of dread was just nature's way of gentl y hinting that he was moving into a stage of his life in which h e wouldn't be quite as fast or strong as he once was. Perhaps it was a million-year-old survival reflex, speaking to him in a language hi s modern mind could understand. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Mayb e it was just the hopelessness and futility of it all.

When he'd first started operating in the Middle East four long year s ago now he'd been full of idealism. While his methods weren't exactl y the most enlightened humanity had at its disposal, he'd thought he wa s making a difference. He could remember actually letting the word s "make the world a better place" drool from his mouth, though he'd neve r admit it now.

The truth, it turned out, was a bit darker than his youthful fantasy.

He was now fairly certain that he killed men for the sole purpose o f making a bunch of master's degree wielding men in Washington feel lik e they were doing something. Or worse, to allow them to wrap their soft , pale bodies in the lie that they were the courageous warriors thei r inflated egos told them they were.

Al Fayed was no longer naive enough to believe that America was an y safer because of the four men he'd left blackening beneath the powerfu l North African sun. They would have already been replaced. And one da y their sons would rise up with revenge and hatred in their hearts t o lead the fight against the country that had taken their fathers awa y from them.

It was clear to him now that the problems that plagued the world, an d that were so glaring in this part of it, were ingrained to the poin t that there was really no solution only pointless attempts to delay th e inevitable. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, people were n o different than they had been thousands of years ago, when humanity ha d been a twitchy and mean-spirited species barely enlightened enough t o be trusted with swords and spears. How did anyone fool themselves int o thinking that stability could be maintained in a time when individual s had the power to, in minutes, destroy what it took centuries t o build?

Al Fayed took another sip of water and looked around him at the broke n buildings lined up in front of him. Despite being built of hardene d mud and stone, they had a strange aura of impermanence. Desperatel y inadequate bulwarks against the chaos that swirled around them. Whethe r they'd succumb to America's brilliant new bombs, a sudden flair o f factional fighting, or just to decay and despair, was hard to predict.

The only thing that was certain was that one day they would succumb.

The more time he spent in the Middle East, the more certain he becam e that the region was irreparably broken. How could these people lear n to anchor themselves in a modern world never dreamed of by the ancien t prophet they believed so deeply in? It was a psychological and mora l conflict that left the people here both desiring and shunning th e things progress could bring them.

In fairness, many Westerners really did want to help. They saw thei r culture as measurably superior wealthier, less violent, healthier. The y thought that if they could just persuade these barbarians to sto p fighting and relax a little they, too, could be watching Sex and th e City reruns on a big-screen TV and taking their kids to soccer practic e in a brand-new sport utility vehicle. But it wasn't that simple.

Empathy, it turned out, was the only weapon worth wielding here and th e only one the Americans simply didn't have the know-how to build. I f you couldn't understand your enemy if you couldn't get into their head s you would never defeat them. Sending clueless general after clueles s general to try to control situations and people they couldn't even tal k to was absurd. Trying to solve Arab problems with American solution s had a long and illustrious history of failure that no one seemed to pa y any attention to. And so the machine, no matter how broken, groun d on.

Al Fayed leaned his head against the cool wall behind him and stared u p at the uniform blue of the sky. For a man whose education had ende d with a whimper in the twelfth grade, he was becoming quite th e political philosopher. Not exactly a useful skill for someone with hi s vocation.

He tried to just let his mind go blank and when that failed he tried t o tell himself a joke. Under the circumstances, though, he couldn't com e up with one funny enough to do the job. Better to just move on an d ponder a cushy job in security consulting. Magnum, PI. seemed to mak e out like a bandit.

He pushed himself to his feet and started up the dirt road again bu t then ducked behind a burned-out half-track when he heard a high-pitche d scream shake the air. He put a hand on the machine gun beneath hi s robe and looked back out into the suddenly empty street.

A few seconds later it came again, lasting long enough for him t o identify its source as a young girl and to hypothesize that she was i n an alley that started about fifty feet from where he was standing.

His planned route would take him right by that alley and he looke d around him again, trying to find an alternate path to the other side o f the village. What he didn't need was to get involved in some pett y street violence and blow what had been, to this point, a dream mission.

He'd been in the country for three days, killed four men, and covere d sixty miles on foot without so much as a broken nail a situation h e wasn't looking to change.

He eased around the half-track and jogged twenty feet along the silen t road, his eyes sweeping shadowy corners and rooftops as he turned lef t into a narrow pathway between two buildings. The third scream , combined with the fact that the passageway he found himself in was a little tight and blind to be strategic, stopped him. He was certai n now that it was coming from a young girl. An odd acoustic trick mad e her voice clearly audible, pleading for help before suddenly goin g silent again.

Al Fayed looked behind him, cursing quietly in Arabic and trying t o decide what to do. Continue down this cramped deathtrap or back towar d something that had the clear potential to badly disrupt his plan o f afternoon surfing and umbrella drinks.

He stood there for a few more seconds before turning around and runnin g back onto the main street. As he approached the alleyway, he coul d hear voices of two men, sounding strangely distant as they bounced of f the stone walls around them. Subtly repositioning his gun barrel t o aim right, he continued to approach the alley.

The black scarf that should have covered the girl's face had bee n partially torn off, making it possible to estimate her age at aroun d sixteen or seventeen. She was on her back in the thick dust, kickin g and punching violently at the two men trying to hold her. One had a knee on her chest, making it more of a challenge for his compatriot t o tear off the robe that covered her from neck to toe. The entir e operation was a bit disorganized, but overwhelming force was on th e men's side. With the aid of a knife, one of them exposed the girl's street clothes: a dirty T-shirt and the remnants of a gray wool skirt.

By the time al Fayed realized that he was stopped in the middle of th e street staring at them, the man on top had removed his knee from th e girl's chest and was using it to pry her legs apart.

She managed to free a hand and was about to claw out at one of he r attackers, but lost her focus when she spotted al Fayed standing in th e mouth of the alley. She began pleading, fighting to maintain ey e contact with the only hope she had.

Try as he might, a good joke still eluded him.

One of the men looked back and shouted at him to leave. When al Faye d remained frozen, the man just laughed and went back to the squirmin g child beneath him.

There was no reason to get involved in this. It was the reality o f this particular girl's universe. Her parents were probably dea d victims of the violence that had swallowed this area long ago leavin g her to fend for herself. It was a precarious position that demanded a bit more caution than she had apparently shown.

Al Fayed had never been able to take religion all that seriously. Th e truth that he couldn't seem to let go of was that a person's God wa s nothing more than a function of their address. If you were born i n North Carolina, you were absolutely certain that the Baptists were th e only people on a first-name basis with God. In Afghanistan, you woul d sacrifice your life without a thought to defend Mohammed's vision.

Thailand? Buddha was your man. There was just too much random chanc e involved for him to see any real mysticism in it.

Evolution, though .. . Now there was a philosophy that he could ge t behind. From what he'd been unfortunate enough to see, the fi t survived and the meek weren't going to inherit shit. This girl ha d been stupid to let herself get pulled into that dirty little alley. Th e men he'd killed the day before hadn't been smart or strong enough t o effectively defend themselves. And on a larger scale, North Americ a thrived while much of the Middle East didn't. Life had a simple an d oddly comforting symmetry once you exorcised all the mysteriou s deities.

The man temporarily gave up on the girl's skirt and was now holding he r wrists above her head. With control reasserted, he looked up at a l Fayed again. "What are you doing there?" he yelled in Arabic. "Go!"

It was good advice. This girl had no future. It wasn't anybody's fault and it wasn't worth crying or agonizing over. She was just bor n in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether her life ended today o r tomorrow or next week didn't matter. Not to him. Not to anyone.

"Go!" the man shouted again, offering the girl's wrists to hi s companion and standing. "Get out of here, now!"

The girl was getting tired and her pleas were coming between gasps a s she continued to try to escape. Three more minutes and she wouldn't even be able to offer token resistance to whatever these men wanted t o do to her. Which was probably a lot.

The face of the approaching man was almost invisible, covered by a thick beard that grew up his cheeks almost to his eyes. He continue d to shout as he slipped a hand behind his back to retrieve what wa s undoubtedly some kind of weapon.

Al Fayed took a step forward, putting a hand on the man's elbow an d pinning his arm long enough to retrieve his own knife and shove i t through the man's beard and into his throat.

Surprise was the only thing that registered on his face as his eye s angled downward to watch the knife slide back out and blood fan acros s his chest. Then a brief moment of confusion before he crumpled to th e ground.

The girl's tired grunts turned into a piercing scream, tipping off th e man holding her that al Fayed was running up behind. He was faste r than he looked and managed to roll to the side and retrieve an archai c but undoubtedly effective pistol from his waistband.

Al Fayed threw his knife as he closed the distance between them, hopin g to distract the man's aim. To his surprise and in keeping with hi s stellar luck on this mission it stuck in his chest. Not deep enough t o seriously injure him, but plenty deep to cause the bullet that shoul d have hit its target instead to smash into a building across th e street.

The man was still on his knees when they collided and al Fayed jerke d right as they fell to the ground, closing his eyes against the burn o f gunpowder as a bullet screamed past his left temple. He ignored th e flash of pain and the ringing in his ear, covering the man's face wit h his hand and shoving his head back into the unfortunately soft dirt.

His own gun was trapped between them, so he was forced to begin th e surprisingly difficult process of working the knife out of the man's breastbone.

It was almost free when an intense ache in his lower back suddenl y robbed him of most of his strength. He fell to the left, throwing hi s body weight into one final yank. The knife came out with a we t crunching sound and al Fayed swung it behind him in a clumsy, blin d arc. He caught the young girl across the throat, missing the critica l arteries but creating a gash deep enough to make her drop the blood y shiv that she'd stuck him with in order to clamp her small hands ove r her own wound.

They hit the ground simultaneously and al Fayed used his momentum t o roll onto his hands and knees. When he tried to stand, though, hi s body wouldn't do what it was told. He turned his head slowly towar d the girl, watching her choke violently, spewing thick fountains o f blood from her mouth that then fell back into her face. The entir e scene had the feel of an out-of-focus and slightly overexposed movie.

He heard movement behind him and managed to crane his neck far enoug h to see the man rise unsteadily to his feet and aim his gun. The flas h was surprisingly dim and was followed by an impact to al Fayed's bac k that was sufficient to cause him to collapse face-first into th e dirt.

The girl was motionless now. Not dead but watching the sky, waitin g for it to come. Strangely, the smile that stretched his chapped lip s hurt more than anything else. He'd obviously been a little smug i n assuming that the girl was so unfit. It had all been a setup designe d to draw him into the alley so that they could take what he had and us e it to survive another few days. It had been stupid to allow himself t o be lured so easily, and stupidity was not rewarded in this part of th e world.

Charles Darwin would not be cheated.

Chapter One.

"Roy Buckner."

"No."

Hillel Strand looked over the file in his hands as the distance betwee n his eyebrows and the tops of his reading glasses increased. "Jesu s Christ, Matt. What now? The man's former Army Delta with multipl e successful missions in hostile territory. He has a reasonably clea n service record.. .."

"I know all about Roy," Matt Egan said. "We're looking for scalpel s and this guy's a sledgehammer. A violent, arrogant, rednec k sledgehammer."

"At this rate our team's going to consist of you and the secretaria l pool, Matt. Is it possible that your standards are a bit high? Thes e guys are Special Forces. I think we can expect them to be arrogant an d a little violent."

"To a point," Egan agreed. "But Roy has a real problem wit h overestimating his abilities which I'll admit are considerable and he's a little too enamored with killing. A story about Roy: He was on a joint mission in Syria a few years back with a SEAL I worked with th e best operator I've ever known. Roy spent the entire missio n grandstanding, trying to prove he was the best man, and damn nea r brought the entire thing down around their ears. He doesn't know it , but that SEAL was within about three seconds of putting a bullet in hi s back. And if he had, I'd have supported that decision."

Strand tossed the file onto his growing "maybe" stack and began diggin g through the ones they hadn't reviewed yet, finally pulling one fro m near the bottom.

"Your SEAL," he said, opening the manila folder. "Salam al Fayed. I a ssume there's no discussion necessary? We want him, right?"

Egan sighed quietly and leaned back in his chair, gazing at th e photograph clipped to the file in Strand's hand. It had been a lon g time since he'd looked at that face. But nowhere near long enough.

Homeland Security had finally stabilized its organizational structur e and Egan had been brought in to help create a division that would b e involved in the more tangible side of ensuring the safety of America's citizens. The exact mission of the euphemistically named Office o f Strategic Planning and Acquisition was still a bit hazy, but the botto m line was that the government was moving to what politicians politel y called "a more surgical approach."

Apparently, they'd finally come to the rather obvious conclusion tha t the U. S. couldn't go to war with every country that hated it or wa s starting a nuclear weapons program, and this was their solution.

Matt Egan had been recommended for the job as Hillel Strand's numbe r two at OSPA and during his interview, Darren Crenshaw, the new directo r of Homeland Security, had described the program as being based on a Mossad-type model. Egan had assumed that his response to tha t characterization essentially, "Yeah, and look how well it's worked ou t for the Israelis" would quickly end his candidacy. It turned out tha t the opposite was true. General Crenshaw was looking for someone to b e a voice of reason in what was becoming an increasingly paranoid an d reactionary choir.

"I think it would be best if we stayed away from al Fayed."

Not surprisingly, Strand slammed the file down on his desk. "What ar e we getting paid for here, Matt? I'll tell you: To form a team that ca n get things done. Not to shit can every possible candidate." He pointed to the folders stacked on his desk. "These are the men we hav e available. We need at least eight. So far we have zero."

OSPA had access to current and former Special Forces operatives fro m the various branches of the military but, even with that kind of talen t available, it was a fairly delicate piece of staffing. This was mad e even more difficult by the fact that Strand was a political appointe e with no field experience and an apparent inability to face th e complexities of creating this team.

"A few years back he was on his way to his extraction point afte r completing "

"I read the file, Matt. He let himself get involved in some stree t scuffle and got shot."

Egan nodded slowly. "He almost died, Hillel. Actually, it's a miracl e he didn't. A radical Muslim man found him, took him home, and save d his life. It took us six months to find him and get him out."

"So you're saying, what? He's gone native? Some guy helps him out an d now he's a terrorist sympathizer?"

Egan considered just saying yes and being done with it, but he didn't want to risk the possibility that something negative might then fin d its way into al Fayed's file. "Come on. You read what happened. Whe n we got him back to the States we found out he had a bullet lodged nex t to his spine. There was a doctor in California who thought he coul d get it out but the procedure was expensive and experimental. Becaus e the doctor was using a new technique, the surgery didn't fit onto an y of the government's forms. So they just decided it wasn't covered. Th e bullet's going to paralyze him someday, Hillel, and we didn't lift a finger to help him. I think it's fair to say that when he walked awa y from us he didn't do it with a lot of warm feelings."

Strand sat thoughtfully for a moment, then opened the file and bega n paraphrasing from it. "Born to a first-generation Arab Christia n family in New York. He looks Arab and his Arabic is near perfect h e has no problem passing. No siblings. Parents dead. Unmarried, n o relatives in the U. S. He left the Navy to work for the CIA." Stran d looked up for a moment. "Recruited by you personally."

"That might as well have been a thousand years ago," Egan responded.

"I did some checking into this one. Currently, he has no real job. No money. No friends. Things haven't been going so well for our Mr. a l Fayed. Maybe he's ready to come back into the fold?"

"Look, Hillel... I knew this guy for years actually, he was one of m y best friends. Trust me when I tell you this is a dead end. Eve n before we screwed him over he was starting to put together this weir d mishmash of history, politics, and Darwin in his head.. .. Let's jus t say that he was on his way out one way or another. Besides, he's injured to the point that he really isn't qualified anymore."

"I'm not sure I like the defeatist attitude you're adopting, Matt. Yo u seem to be focused on 'why' instead of 'how." If there's anythin g we're learning from this process it's that no candidate's perfect. Bu t al Fayed is goddamn close. There are no other guys like this anywher e right now. We're looking at people with Arab backgrounds, but we'r e years from having anybody like this. Other than al Fayed, we don't have a single candidate who can move around unnoticed in an Ara b country. This guy could walk in here and be operational in a week. No t to mention how useful he could be in a training capacity."

"Hillel "

"What? You know the position I'm in. Those sons of bitches i n Congress are coming down on the intelligence community for not takin g chances but we know goddamn well that what they really mean is tha t they want us to take risks and win every time. If things get screwe d up, then they're going to be falling all over themselves to be the one s who nail us to the cross. We need to have the best and as I see it , even with his drawbacks, al Fayed is head and shoulders above anyon e else."

"But "

Strand waved his hand for silence. "I don't want to hear the reason s we can't have him, Matt. What I want to hear is a way we can hav e him."

Chapter Two.

The house was warped and bowed enough that if it was painted in brigh t primary colors instead of peeling gray, it would look like a carniva l fun-house. It was situated about two hours from Washington, D. C." i n the center of a five-acre lot strewn with mature trees and jagge d boulders. Al Fayed had apparently been renting the property for almos t a year and was currently two months behind in his payments.

Egan eased off the dirt driveway about fifty yards from the house an d stepped from the car, looking out over the property. To the right o f the house was a large metal building that leaned a bit less radicall y but that was rusted in a pattern that made it look like someone ha d dumped brown paint over the edges of the roof. In front, and onl y slightly less rusted, was an old car resting on blocks fashioned fro m rotting logs. A Thunderbird was Egan's best guess, though hi s knowledge of classic cars was spotty at best. The little he did kno w had come from al Fayed who, after a few beers, used to go on about the m for hours.

"Are we just going to stand here?" Strand said, leaning over the roo f of the car and slapping a palm down on it.

Not if running away is an option, Egan thought as he forced himsel f forward through the patchwork of dirt, gravel, and weeds that covere d the ground. Strand came up alongside and frowned as he found himsel f forced to match Egan's unnaturally slow gait. On some level, h e probably knew that this wasn't a great idea and he wasn't anxious t o take point.

Egan slowed even more as they passed by the old car, examining th e graceful lines barely visible beneath the toll time and weather ha d taken. It was hard not to see it as another one of al Fayed's dream s that hadn't quite worked out.

The man who stepped out onto the porch didn't seem familiar at first.

His black hair was held back in a haphazard ponytail that hinted a t going well down his broad back. His arms and shoulders were thick an d powerful looking but lacked definition and gave him a beefy, almos t clumsy, look. That slight softness continued in his face, rounding i t out and smoothing the lines in the dark skin around his eyes.

Egan stopped a good fifteen feet from the house and Strand followe d suit.

"Hello, Fade."

The nickname had been bestowed by his teammates years ago based, it wa s said, on his ability to disappear into the background and slit you r throat. More likely it was because Salam al Fayed wasn't the name o f someone your average SEAL wanted watching his back. Either way, it ha d stuck.

"What are you doing here, Matt?"

Strand found his voice, as he eventually always did, and answered. "We wanted to talk to you."

Fade walked down the steps and Egan fought an urge to back up.

"About what?"

"About getting you back into the game."

"The game?" Fade's gaze moved from Strand back to Egan. "Where'd yo u get this guy? Bureaucrats M Us? Get the hell off my property."

"It's not your property," Strand pointed out. He was controlling it , but there was a hint of anger audible in his voice. He wasn't accustomed to being insulted or spoken about like he wasn't there. "I n fact, it seems that you're about a month away from being thrown of f it."

"Hillel .. ." Egan cautioned, but Strand ignored him.

"Have you been watching the news, Mr. al Fayed? The world's changin g and we have to control those changes. To do that, we need men lik e you."

Fade looked like he was about to walk away but then seemed to chang e his mind. "But you're doing such a great job on your own. We've got a big hole in the ground where the Trade Center used to be and ever y country in the world either hates us or is so afraid of us that they'r e spending every dime they have to build nuclear missiles to aim our way.

If it weren't for dumbass politicians like you mucking around in thing s you don't understand, how would all those defense contractors kee p themselves in Ferraris and trophy wives?"

This wasn't going quite as well as Egan had hoped. But at least n o shots had been fired yet. "I think what "

Strand cut him off. "I have a master's in public policy from Harvar d and I'm doing graduate courses in Middle Eastern history. Now, remin d me about your background? Did you ever graduate from high school?"

Fade's reply was undoubtedly less than civil but Egan couldn't be sur e because it was in Arabic.

"What's the problem?" Fade asked, switching back to English. "Don't tell me you missed that. There are illiterate six-year-olds in Ira q who would have understood what I just said, so you'll excuse me if I'm not terribly impressed by your expertise. And by the way, who the fuc k are you?"

"My name is Hillel Strand. I work for Homeland Security. I "

"Ever read the Koran, Hillel Strand from Homeland Security? Ever eve n been to the Middle East? Or is your entire experience with the are a from playing golf with one of those assholes you people keep sendin g over there to fuck things up?" He pointed at Egan. "At least Matt , the back-stabbing slug he is, was willing to go over there and get i n front of a bullet. People like you make me "

"Fade!" Egan shouted. "That's enough. You've got no beef wit h Hillel. He had nothing to do with what happened to you."

"Oh, right. That was you."

There it was again. That urge to back up.

Fade jerked forward, causing Strand to jump back, land on a rock, an d almost fall over.

A smirk, a roll of the eyes, and then Fade turned his back and starte d toward his workshop.

"Why don't you two run on back to Homeland Security and tell them tha t this sand nigger is retired," he said as he disappeared into th e building's bay doors.

Egan let out a long breath, relieved that Fade was gone. Strand, o n the other hand, was standing there with his jaw set in a display o f anger that was becoming all too familiar.

"Well, like you said," Egan began, trying to diffuse the situation. "I t was worth a try. But the guy's obviously lost it. Look at him. He used to be chiseled out of stone. Now he's just some wacko hippi e living in the woods." He turned back toward the car but stopped whe n Strand spoke.

"That's the difference between you and me, isn't it, Matt? I've neve r thought losing is acceptable."

Great.

"You're pushing your luck, Matt."

Egan stepped cautiously through the door and stood at the back, lettin g his eyes adjust to the lower light levels. The shop was packed wit h neatly arranged power tools and any number of other potentially deadl y instruments.

"You could have handled that better, Fade. Hillel's a pretty powerfu l guy and he's not used to being talked to like that."

"So what happened, Matt? You get tired of kissing CIA ass and decide d to go find some fresh cheeks at Homeland Security?"

The ironic truth was that he'd gone over his boss's head trying to ge t Fade his surgery and the director had slapped him down. After that, i t had become pretty clear that his career at the CIA was dead-ended.

Homeland Security was supposed to have been greener pastures.

Fade put on a pair of safety glasses and began cutting through a boar d with a radial arm saw. Egan walked to within a few feet of him an d shouted over the scream of the blade. "I want to help you!"

Fade slammed a hand into the switch controlling the saw and threw th e cut piece of wood to the ground as the motor died. "I haven't seen yo u in six years and suddenly you show up and you want to help me? What , like you did before?"

Egan walked over to the door he'd entered through, slid it closed, an d turned back toward Fade. "Look, Hillel's just another asshol e politician who thinks he's a tough guy. You know the type as well as I d o. If you hadn't just stood there and insulted the man to his face , I'd have convinced him that you're crazy and you would have never hear d from us again. But now his back's up and it's not going to be tha t easy. I can smooth this thing over, but you're going to have to com e in and play the game a little bit."

"Or what?"

"You don't want to be "

"What the hell happened to you, man? I can't believe I used to trus t you with my life."

"Why do you have to make everything so hard?"

"Because it is hard!" Fade shouted, picking up a long screwdriver tha t was lying next to the saw. Egan kept his eyes glued to th e instrument.

"I've given everything to this country! I've been shot, stabbed , poisoned. I've had malaria, dysentery, and dengue. I drowned once , for Christ's sake they were barely able to bring me back. I was alway s there when my country needed me. But when I needed it, everybody jus t turned their backs and walked away. Do you know that after everythin g I've done, everything I've been through, I can't even get on a plan e without someone trying to shove a camera up my ass first? Do you hav e any idea what my life is like now, Matt? What it's like to stan d around waiting for this bullet in my back to move a millimeter in th e wrong direction and paralyze me?"

Egan shook his head. "I don't."

"Well, let me tell you, then. I don't really sleep anymore because I'm afraid that if I do, I won't feel it coming and when I wake up, I won't be able to move. One day I realized that I'd found something I coul d kill myself with in every room of my house. Razors, knives, Drano , glass. An outlet and some water. It wasn't something I figured out o n purpose. It just happened. But you know what the really sad thing is?

I'm probably just fooling myself. The doctors tell me that there's a sixty percent chance that the paralysis will be from the neck down."

"Fade, I "

"You know what my greatest fear is, Matt? That some UPS guy will fin d me before I die of thirst. That I'll end up lying in a nursing hom e wearing diapers and staring at the ceiling for the next thirt y years."

What was the appropriate response to something like that? There wa s none. Egan pushed the door open and began backing out of it, holdin g his gaze on the screwdriver in Fade's hand.

"Hey, Matt .. ."

He glanced up long enough to see the dead expression on his ol d friend's face.

"If you ever come back here, I'll kill you." "Yeah. I know."

"So what happened?" Strand said as he revved the car up the dirt roa d toward the highway.

"I told him he should show you more respect."

"Are we going to get him?"

"I tried, Hillel, but he said no and believe me, he meant it."

"You seem okay with failing here."

"We failed a long time ago. I'm on record saying that we fucked thi s guy. Maybe we should have been a little more forward thinking if ther e was a chance we were going to need him again."

"Mistakes were made," Strand admitted. "But maybe we can put the m right. I'll talk to some people and we'll see what we can do abou t getting him the surgery he wants. When he's recovered, we'll tal k again."

Egan shook his head. "The bullet shifted years ago and now it's surrounded by scar tissue. It's too late. There's nothing anyone ca n do."

Strand fell silent for long enough that Egan began to think the subjec t was closed. No such luck.

"Okay, then. What can we hold over him?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard what I said."

"Nothing, Hillel. He did a great job. That's why you want him."

"Everybody's got something in their background that they're not prou d of. Maybe we should take a look."

Egan didn't respond immediately; instead he just stared out th e windshield into the bright blue sky. There was no way he was going t o let this happen again. No way.

"Give me a couple of days, Hillel. I'll look into it."

A barely perceptible smile, completely devoid of humor, played a t Strand's lips. "No, you've got plenty on your plate right now. We'l l let Lauren run with this."

Chapter Three.

Matt Egan didn't bother to turn on any lights, instead making his wa y through the house by memory and partially blinding himself when h e opened the refrigerator.

Maybe his luck was changing. There was still a single piece o f browning banana cream pie perched on top of a container of cottag e cheese. He shoved half of it in his mouth with one hand and used th e other to fish out a carton of milk. Everything went black again whe n he closed the refrigerator and he felt around for an empty section o f counter to sit on.

After leaving Fade's house, his day had actually managed to deteriorat e something he'd have bet good money wasn't possible. Strand's assistan t had rebuffed his every offer to help her with her research into Fad e and ignored every clever inquiry as to her progress. One way o r another, this was going to end badly. Other than being a completel y humorless ice princess, Lauren McCall had few other failings. She wa s smart, resourceful, and annoyingly tenacious. With no way to bloc k her, it seemed likely that the rickety house of cards he'd built aroun d his old friend was about to come tumbling down. A very bad thing fo r everyone involved.

He jammed the rest of the pie into his mouth and chewed violently, bu t it didn't make him feel any better. In fact, it combined with th e hollow nervous sensation in his stomach to make him nauseous. A f itting end to a truly shitty day. Or more accurately, a fittin g beginning to a situation that was almost certain to turn into a complete disaster.

He tossed the empty milk container in what he hoped was the sink, an d began feeling his way toward the door to the basement.

The descent down the staircase was made easier by the glow of a singl e bare bulb at its base and he made his way through the piles o f abandoned toys, laundry, and exercise equipment to a heavy door at th e back. Turning the knob, he peeked inside.

"Anybody home?"

He'd built the room himself and it showed. It was a slightly crooke d and windowless fifteen by fifteen, with thick walls covered i n sound-absorbing empty egg cartons and a web of wires and cables. Th e thick carpet was stacked with amplifiers and musical instruments, som e too obscure for him to identify. Along the far wall was a n unfathomable electronic fire hazard that looked like a cross between a n elaborate stereo system and NASA's Houston control center.

Through unwavering determination and considerable practice, hi s six-year-old daughter had carved out enough space from the chaos to se t up an elaborate dollhouse, which she was in the process o f redecorating.

"Where on earth did your mother get a banjo?" Egan said, leaning th e instrument against a wall and lying down in the space it had inhabited.

Kali shrugged and continued to experiment with the feng shui of he r tiny living room. They'd adopted her as a toddler from Vietnam thre e years ago, but sometimes it was hard to believe that Elise wasn't he r biological mother. They had the same thin, almost frail build, th e same unconventionally brilliant minds, and the same almost autisti c ability to concentrate. If one of the gadgets in this room ever reall y did catch on fire while the women of the house were thinking, it woul d undoubtedly burn down around them completely unnoticed.

"Here or here," she said, now working with a tiny armoire.

His influence wasn't as strong, but it had provided his daughter wit h an obsessive sense of organization completely lacking in her mother.

"I think next to the table. Then Barbie will be able to see the TV w hile she's arranging her china."

He glanced up at his wife, who was sitting motionless in a beanba g chair staring at a laptop through the long strands of hair hanging i n her face. Even if she could hear him through the enormous headphone s she was wearing, he knew better than to try to talk to her.

"What's your mom up to?"

"Dunno. Strawberry People, I think."

"Still?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's late. Have you had dinner?"

She pointed to a pizza box lying in the corner.

"More health food, huh. You're gonna waste away to nothing eating tha t stuff."

He leaned his head on a stuffed moose and focused on his wife again.

She was still staring at the computer screen, bobbing her head a bit a s she absorbed what was coming through her headphones.

Five years ago, in what could only be described as a wild contortion o f fate, he'd married the woman Spin magazine had called America's mos t gifted songwriter. She'd been only twenty-five at the time, playin g guitar in no less than three bands to make ends meet, and he'd been a thirty-three-year-old CIA operative.

Since then, there had never been a dull moment. She'd finally put a band together that had the right chemistry and their notoriety ha d begun to swell. Her last CD had been named to a number of alternativ e top ten lists and a few of her songs had recently been used in th e sound track of a reasonably successful independent film about a homicidal bass player.

Of course, none of this really translated into money. Her career wa s break-even at best. Not that he really cared about that any more tha n he cared that everything she'd recorded sounded like cats fighting t o him. She was the most amazing person he'd ever met and he stil l couldn't understand why she'd even lowered herself to talk to him.

He refocused on the ceiling, trying not to allow his mind to take th e obvious path of comparing his life with Fade's to see that warped , empty house and the car rusting away in the dirt out front. Thei r backgrounds really weren't all that different. Why had everythin g turned out so right for him and so wrong for Fade?

He reached out and tugged at his daughter's hair, trying to put Fad e out of his mind.

"Quit being so immature!" she said, swatting at his hand. She'd jus t learned that word and it had quickly become her favorite.

His wife's eyes suddenly unglued themselves from the computer in he r lap and a broad smile splashed across her face. They had been mor e than a year into their relationship before he'd gotten used to th e almost schizophrenic way she could go from startling intensity t o easygoing grins.

"Hard day?" she said, pushing off her headphones.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because it's nine o'clock and you're staring off into space with a milk mustache and a bunch of pie all over your face."

"That's gross, you know," Kali chimed in.

"I don't have to take that from someone whose diapers I changed."

"You did not!"

"I guess you're right. I've had better days."

"Ready to be cheered up?"

"Very."

She slid off her beanbag chair and lay down on the floor next to him.

"The song I wrote for Madonna is going to make it. They're putting i t on the record."

"You're joking."

"Swear to God. I got the call today."

Egan looked over at Kali. "Did you hear that, honey? Four years o f male, white corporate indoctrination is all but paid for. If there's a dance mix, maybe even graduate school!"

That got him a hard poke in the ribs from his wife.

"Smart-ass. I wouldn't get your hopes up. There's no telling whethe r it'll ever get radio play."

"Still, though .. ." He almost said "congratulations," but stoppe d himself. The whole "selling out" thing was quite a stigma in th e circles she ran in. But eventually you got to a point in life wher e there were certain realities.

"I know how hard it was for you to do that song, Elise."

"It's no big deal."

There was about thirty seconds of silence before he spoke again. "It's the best thing you ever wrote, you know."

She laughed, knowing full well he was completely serious. Hi s proclivity for ABBA and KC and the Sunshine Band were well known t o her, but she chose to ignore them. Among other things.

"How's Strawberry People coming?"

She had been bogged down for weeks in the last song for her upcomin g CD, A Long Night with the Strawberry People (whatever the hell tha t meant). Deadlines were looming and things were starting to ge t desperate.

"Done."

"Is that a joke?"

"The answer was right in front of me."

"Really? What answer?"

"It's a country song."

"A country song?"

She nodded excitedly. "You wouldn't believe the sound you can get fro m a pedal steel guitar if you run it through a cheap distortion pedal an d let it feed back.. .."

Hank Williams was undoubtedly rolling over in his grave to retrieve hi s earplugs. "Well, this certainly calls for some serious celebration."

She rolled over and propped her head on his stomach. "Seriou s celebration."

Elise, full of cold pizza and warm beer, had fallen asleep more than a n hour ago, but Matt Egan was still lying in bed wide awake. Finally, h e slid his arm out from beneath her pillow and padded quietly out of th e room.

The cramped den at the back of the house contained a small refrigerato r and before sitting down behind his desk he pulled out a beer that wa s going to put him well into hangover territory. Determined to ge t crocked enough to drown the memories swimming around in his head, h e opened the bottle and drank half of it, still clearly able to remembe r the first time he'd heard the name Salam al Fayed. He'd been workin g for Military Intelligence at the time and Fade was halfway through Hel l Week the brutal program used by the Navy to qualify SEAL candidates.

Fade's boat crew hadn't slept for more than two days and had endure d countless miles of running, hours of live fire exercises, and an ocea n swim in hypothermia-inducing temperatures. Two of his team had alread y quit and the others were so exhausted and cold that Fade was concerne d they wouldn't make it through the upcoming obstacle course. He'd started telling jokes to try to boost their morale and, when tha t didn't work, he decided to perform an elaborate striptease right ther e on the beach. By the end of it, everyone, annoyed instructor s excepted, was energetically humming along to his gyrations.

Not sure what else to do, the instructors had put him up against a wal l and aimed a fire hose at him. Before they opened the hydrant, though , he yelled, "Wait!" and produced a pink bathing cap covered in brigh t yellow ducks from his fatigues. When, after fifteen minutes of bein g repeatedly knocked down by the icy flood, he went on to nearly set th e record in the obstacle course, people began to speculate that he wasn't human.

Shortly thereafter, Egan had left the army and gone into th e operational side of CIA, taking a position overseeing operations tha t weren't strictly legal but were seen as becoming increasingl y necessary. There, he'd kept tabs on the young al Fayed with the ide a that he was someone the CIA might be interested in after he'd prove d himself under fire.

It hadn't taken long. Fade's first live mission had gone downhil l fast. The helicopter his team had been in took a hit and one of hi s comrades had fallen out in hostile territory. Against orders, Fade ha d grabbed some weapons and jumped out into the dark after him. He la y there in the rocks with a broken leg and defended his unconsciou s friend for ten hours. By the time they were finally extracted, Fad e had managed to completely demoralize a force estimated at over a hundred. A spy plane flying overhead had confirmed that Fade wa s hitting people as far out as nine hundred meters despite the darknes s and wind.

Not surprisingly, Egan had recruited him right there in his hospita l bed. After that, Fade had spent almost three years operating in th e Middle East before being stabbed by that damn little girl. The n everything had gone in the toilet. In the end, all Egan had been abl e to do was offer his friend the pick of any instructor position h e wanted. Not surprisingly, Fade had refused. As he saw it, he had bee n betrayed. And he was right.

Chapter Four.

The saw blade caught at the edge of the board and splintered it , sending a chunk of wood into Fade's bare shoulder.

"Damn it!"

He looked over at the half-finished set of kitchen cabinets he wa s working on and threw the board into one of the doors, leaving a dee p vertical gouge. The only thing he'd managed to accomplish since Mat t Egan and that other asshole had left that morning was to destroy mor e oak than he could afford. Everything he'd been so carefully maskin g with a combination of willpower, diversions, and drugs was now closin g back in on him. He reached for a drill but the strength had gone ou t of him. Suddenly, it felt almost impossible even to put one foot i n front of the other as he wandered out into the darkness and collapse d beneath a tree.

By then his breath was coming fast enough to make him dizzy and he pu t his head between his legs, concentrating on calming down.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. He'd been the best at what he did.

And that was supposed to have translated into a great career. A wife.

Kids .. .

None of that had materialized, though. Now at thirty-three he had nex t to nothing: some tools, a failing business, and a few deterioratin g personal possessions. He'd given up on relationships years ago. Ther e was no way he was going to leave a family and friends tethered to hi m by guilt when the shrapnel in his back finally paralyzed him. Th e thought of lying there motionless watching the slowly shrinkin g procession of people from his former life drip pity on him drove hi m even more insane than he already was.

All he did now was survive. He'd tried going the self-hel p psychologist route for a while but had given up when he'd come to th e conclusion that it was just a bunch of bullshit for people who ha d problems that either existed only in their minds or were easil y solved.

The only solution to his particular problem was death. But for som e reason he hadn't been able to coax himself into suicide. So now he wa s a hypocrite. He'd never had a problem killing anyone else.

Maybe this was his punishment. The sentence: to be buried alive in hi s own body. But even that wasn't a fair analogy. People who were burie d alive died in hours. With a little luck, the horrors of twenty-firs t century medicine might keep him alive for decades.

Now, to top it all off, there were a bunch of people at Homelan d Security trying to figure out how to screw him over even worse. Th e American government could be infinitely vindictive when it didn't ge t what it wanted a trait that would only get worse as the country fel t increasingly threatened by uncontrollable outside forces. Strand woul d be back and that son of a bitch Matt Egan would be standing right ther e alongside him.

Fade pulled a wood-carving knife from the pocket of his overalls an d held it up so he could see it in the dim light bleeding from the ope n door of his workshop. One last mission. When Strand and his goon s came back determined not to take no for an answer, they'd find what wa s left of him rotting in the sun the same way he'd left so many others.

He sat there for a long time, finally pressing the knife to his wris t hard enough to break the skin. The blood flowing down his arm looke d black.

It was a beautiful night: warm, a sky full of stars, the sound o f crickets hovering on the breeze. There would never be a better time. A l ittle more pressure and the dark trail moving toward his elbo w thickened.

He concentrated harder but it just caused his hand to shake. Finally , he just sunk to the ground, dry eyed, but with his chest heavin g uncontrollably. He could no longer remember a time that he'd actuall y been able to cry, though there had been so many occasions he shoul d have. People said that it helped and maybe it did. What other purpos e could it have?

He didn't know how long he lay there like that long enough for th e stars to progress noticeably across the dark sky. Finally, he pushe d himself to his feet and started toward his house, anger replacing th e solitary hopelessness that normally swallowed any other emotion tha t dared try to surface. He washed the dried blood from his arm and woun d a gauze bandage around his wrist before going into the living room an d rummaging through a stack of woodworking books. He finally found wha t he was looking for under the sofa: a catalog of small servos and motor s used in the construction of entertainment centers.

He'd lost count of the brave and dedicated men who had died trying t o kill him and there was no way he was going to roll over for tha t pissant Hillel Strand. It would be like spitting on the memory of al l those men who'd fought so hard and lost.

The climb into the attic started his wrist bleeding again, but no t badly enough to worry about. He threw open a battered footlocker , filling the air with ancient-smelling dust, and emptied it of th e weapons it contained. He'd assumed he'd need them again one day, bu t hadn't guessed where the threat would come from.

At the bottom he found a handful of old pictures: him and his ol d teammates skulking around dive bars, photographic evidence of th e elaborate practical jokes he used to put so much effort into. When h e looked at himself in those old photos, it was like looking at a dea d relative who you hadn't known all that well. Vague recognition colore d with an even more vague sense of regret.

He let the photos fall from his hand and pulled out a tape measure , using it to determine the dimensions of the tiny attic. If Stran d wanted a fight, he'd goddamn well get one.

Chapter Five.

Despite his third hangover in as many days, Matt Egan pushed throug h the door of OSPA's office suite at seven a . M. Kelly Braith, the offic e receptionist, was already talking on her headset but still managed t o flash him a wide smile and a wave as he stalked toward the copy roo m for more coffee.

After topping off his go-cup, which some office smart-ass had covere d in Elise Egan stickers, he wandered down an empty hallway only to fin d Hillel Strand already talking to his assistant behind the conferenc e room's soundproof glass. He seemed pretty intent on what he was sayin g and Egan sped up, trying to get by without being seen. He was nowher e near caffeinated enough yet to face anything more serious than hi s mail.

He'd actually made it past the large window before the unmistakabl e sound of knuckles on glass stopped him. When he turned around, Stran d was waving him back.

Fabulous.

"Morning," Egan said as he stepped through the door and closed i t behind him.

Strand looked smug and Lauren wouldn't meet his eye. Not a goo d sign.

"We've come up with something on al Fayed that I think will interes t you," Strand said, pointing to an empty chair and then motioning towar d his assistant.

She started slowly, never taking her eyes from the stack of papers i n her lap. "It wasn't easy, but I was finally able to connec t everything. Al Fayed went to Bogota after he walked away from the CIA.

When he was there or possibly before he went to work for the Vel a cartel." Her mouth seemed to suddenly dry out and she took a sip fro m a glass of water in front of her.

"It seems that he killed off some of Vela's local competitors an d scared the hell out of the others. It's likely that he, in combinatio n with Castel Vela's head for business, is responsible for a lot of th e cartel's success. Then, after about a year, it seems like al Faye d just walked away and came back to the States."

"It seems strange that someone like Castel Vela would just let hi m resign," Strand commented.

"I talked to a DEA guy who was down there at the time and he said tha t no one's really sure what happened. Half say that Vela was afraid o f him and the other half say he loved him like a son. As you probabl y know, Vela died six months ago, so we'll never know for sure."

"Why didn't this come out in our initial background check on al Fayed?"

Strand said in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

Lauren squirmed uncomfortably in her chair but didn't speak.

"You've got me on the edge of my seat," Egan said, finally. "Don't keep me waiting."

"Because the information was purposely obscured."

"Really. By whom?"

"By you."

"Very good, Lauren. In three days, you uncovered something I spen t months burying. Gold star."

Strand pointed toward the door and she bolted before he could chang e his mind.

"You can imagine that I was a little surprised when I got that report , Matt."

"Fade was killing Colombian drug dealers on Colombian soil. As I se e it, that's not an American problem. In fact, I know from persona l experience that we're paying people down there to do the exact sam e thing."

"Those are official operations, Matt planned and executed by the U. S. g overnment to disrupt the drug trade. What al Fayed did was hardly th e same thing. He was working to systematically eliminate weake r narcotics organizations so Castel Vela could more efficiently addic t our kids."

Egan nodded in a way that indicated he'd heard, but not that he agreed.

"There's enough cocaine coming into this country every week to sink a battleship, Hillel. Fade did this "

"How much coke is coming in here or what al Fayed's motivations wer e aren't really relevant, are they? You don't have the authority to mak e these kinds of calls. And you damn well "

"Fade did this," Egan repeated, deciding that he'd damn well be allowe d to finish his thought, "to get the money to pay for the medical hel p that he should have gotten from us. But when he got back to th e States, the scar tissue had set and it was too late. We're the reaso n he was out there."

Strand frowned disinterestedly. "Fine. Thank you, Matt. That's all."

Egan stood and leaned forward across the table, looking directly int o his boss's eyes. "That's not all, Hillel. I'm telling you to leav e this alone. Nothing good can come of it."

Strand was silent for a moment as though he was trying to decid e whether to respond or hold to his dismissal of Egan.

"I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion, Matt. We stand to gai n a very talented, well-trained operative who speaks fluent Arabic.

That's the good that can come of this."

Egan fell back into his chair, sliding his palms along the col d tabletop as he did. If he was ever going to figure out a way to mak e Hillel Strand see reason, this was the time. "Listen .. . The Fade yo u met yesterday isn't the man I knew. Trust me, he's on the verge o f completely disintegrating. There's a lot more to know about him tha n you can read on a sheet of paper."

"Maybe the best thing for him would be to come back into a structure d environment where he can be involved in something he's good at. Di d you ever consider that?"

"He doesn't need a fucking structured environment!" Egan shoute d before he could stop himself. He held up a hand, silencing Stran d before he could yell back, and managed to bring his voice under contro l before he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I had a bad night. Let me tr y this from a different angle. You say he's good at what he does. Bu t that's actually an understatement. Fade's one of those rare peopl e who's just better than everybody else. Kind of like Michael Jordan , but with a rifle instead of a basketball. Right now, he's sittin g around in his barn making quilting racks. And that's a good thing.

There's no reason to go over there and start poking this guy with a stick. It's impossible to predict how he'll react."

An incredulous smile suddenly spread across Strand's face. "You'r e afraid of him, aren't you?"

"I'm terrified of him, Hillel."

Chapter Six.

Karen Manning tilted her head back and stared up at the dense web o f tree limbs blocking the sun. It had rained the night before and th e earth beneath her feet was still damp, intensifying the humidity an d causing her blouse to stick to her back. It was a place that seemed t o absorb everything air, sound, light. Appropriate, she supposed.

The call, anticipated with such dread, had come in about an hour ago, a breathless stream of consciousness from a man whose dog had followed a faint odor that now seemed to permeate everything. The stench wa s fueling her rage and frustration to the very edge of her control. Jus t like it always did.

"Anything?" she said, finally looking down.

The young woman's naked body had turned a uniform yellowish-gray excep t where the thin rope that ended her life had left a black ring. Kare n had a damp photograph in her hand that depicted the corpse durin g happier times, waving and smiling energetically, clad in a yello w bikini.

"Nothing new," John Wakefield said, crouching with some difficulty nex t to the body and carefully moving one of its arms to examine the matte d weeds growing beneath.

From looking at him, no one would ever guess that Wakefield had devote d his life to tracking down murderers. A more reasonable guess would b e Mr. Rogers's stand-in. Or aging librarian.

He'd been only days from his retirement party when the bodies an d letters started appearing. As the force's top investigator, he'd fel t obligated to stay on and when he'd announced that decision everyone i n Virginia had let out a sigh of relief.

"Very neat," he said, struggling to stand again. The arthritis in hi s knees caused him a lot of pain and Karen put a hand beneath his arm t o help.

"Plenty of time to be methodical .. . All the time in the world."

It was always exactly the same. In fact, it was becoming almos t monotonous. A young woman would disappear and shortly thereafter a letter would show up at both the department and the home of the woman's family spelling out in graphic detail what her kidnapper was going t o do to her. Then, exactly sixteen days later, the body would be dumpe d in a semi secluded area in the Virginia countryside always naked , strangled, and utterly sterile of clues.

Karen let out a frustrated growl and stalked deeper into the woods , snapping off any tree limbs that were unlucky enough to get in her way.

She didn't stop until she was far enough to escape the smell of deca y and the sounds of police cars running up and down the dirt road.

She had no idea how Wakefield could spend his days calmly pondering th e few scraps of evidence they had and sipping those damn herbal teas o f his. She wanted to do something. Anything. At the rate they wer e closing in on this asshole, he would die of old age before they caugh t him. And, in the meantime, a hundred more innocent women would spen d the last few days of their lives praying for it to end.

She heard the erratic crunch of footsteps coming up behind her bu t didn't turn around.

"Are you all right, Karen?"

"No."

Wakefield came alongside her and followed her gaze through the tree s stretching endlessly in front of them. "After a while you can star t thinking it's your fault. It's not, you know. It's his fault." He leaned forward and tried to coax her into looking at him. "That's m y speech. Did it help?"

"No."

"Is there anything I can say that will?"

She jerked around to face him, speaking in a voice that was too lou d for their surroundings. "You can tell me why the hell you picked m e for this assignment. I'm obviously not cut out for it and we both kno w it wasn't exactly the best political move you ever made."

Wakefield nodded thoughtfully, completely unfazed by her sudden displa y of anger. "It's a fair question. I picked you because I'm tired an d you're not. You're strong and passionate and full of energy. I can't bring any of those things to this investigation. Not anymore. Th e only thing I come with is experience. As far as being political, th e only benefit to being old enough to retire and taking on a job no on e wants is that you don't have to be political. The truth is, if I w anted to, I could go over to the captain's house tonight and slap hi s wife. You know what the repercussions would be? Zip."

"Have you ever met her? You should do it."

He laughed in the host-of-a-children's-show way he always laughed.

"I've got to tell you, John. This is driving me crazy. Every time I t ry to think clearly, I end up fantasizing about getting my hands o n this guy and twisting his head off."

"Maybe you should get a book on meditation?"

"Yeah, that's gonna happen."

"Did you ever think that maybe this guy's sick?"

She rolled her eyes. "Bullshit. He's just another geek who can't ge t a date. You know who was sick? Jack the Ripper. Now there was a gu y with a little get-up-and-go and some originality. Not some loser wh o didn't get enough attention from his mom and wants to see himself o n TV."

That elicited a laugh that was a little more hearty and ironic than on e you'd have gotten from Captain Kangaroo. "You know the other reason I p icked you for this, Karen? "Cause you're kinda fun and you don't think entirely inside the box. I'm going to go out on a limb and sa y that you're the first person in history to use the phras e 'get-up-and-go' to describe Jack the Ripper." He put a fatherly han d on her shoulder. "Look, can you remember one thing for me?"

"What?"

"I could have had the very best for this task force. And instead, I p icked you."

"You're a funny guy, John." She tapped her chest. "Seriously. I'm laughing in here, where it counts."

"Detective Manning?"

They both turned toward the uniformed police officer running in thei r direction.

"The captain just pulled up. He wants to talk to you."

Wakefield winked at her. "Hopefully he didn't hear that comment yo u made about his wife."

When Karen broke from the trees, she saw Captain Pickering leanin g against a squad car coolly surveying the chaos building around him. Sh e slowed to a walk and did the best she could to transform herself int o the respectful and obedient subject he wanted her to be. Honestly, i t was too little too late he couldn't stand her and it was unlikely ther e was anything she could do to change that.

When she had been named the head of her precinct's SWAT team, he, as a former team leader himself, felt as though his accomplishments ha d suddenly been cheapened. And he wasn't alone. Cries of "feminis t affirmative action" echoed throughout the state and the grapevin e filled with enough blonde jokes to make her seriously consider dyein g her hair brown. The bottom line was that he and his boys' club let n o opportunity to undermine her pass.

In the face of so much more resistance than she'd ever imagined, she'd decided to quit after only a few months. Before she did, though, she'd sat down with pen and paper to write a list of her qualification s versus the men she'd beat out for the position. What she managed t o quantify was that she was clearly more qualified than all but one o f them and, by most measures, edged out the one who was close. When sh e finally tossed the pen aside and stood up from her kitchen table, sh e was convinced that she deserved the position and was determined not t o be so easily chased off.

"Did you want to talk to me, sir?"

He didn't answer; instead he reached through the open window of his ca r for a file that he handed to her. She flipped through it, pausin g occasionally to dwell on the more interesting tidbits.

"Yes, sir?"

"I need your team to pick him up. Tonight."

"What's the charge?"

His mouth puckered a bit at the question. If he wasn't careful he wa s going to get those lines her mother feared so much.

"We got a tip that he's been working as some kind of half-asse d enforcer for the Colombian drug cartels and that he's responsible fo r the deaths of the Ramirez brothers."

She nodded and resisted the urge to chew her lower lip as she leafe d through a few more pages. The Ramirez brothers were a couple o f mid-level drug pushers who had been found the month before with nea t little holes in their skulls. There was no mention of them at all i n the file, nor was there anything that suggested "half-assed" was a wor d anyone would use about the man it described. She stopped at a copy o f a newspaper photo depicting a severely leaning house. "Not exactl y living in the lap of luxury, is he? I wonder where all the money he's making is going."

"Well, maybe if you go out there and pick him up instead of standin g around here, we could find out."

Karen managed to smile and ignore the sarcasm. In fact, she was on th e verge of getting used to it. "Have we been watching this guy, sir? Do we know anything about his habits or "

"Did you see it in the file?"

"No."

"Then it's a good bet that we haven't. Look, I'm not asking for al l that much here, Karen. We figure the guy's probably armed so we don't want to send a black and white. Just take your team over there an d arrest the guy."

"Sir, he's a former Navy SEAL and now you're telling me he's a carte l enforcer. Are you sure this is the best way to get him? What abou t waiting for him to go into town and picking him up on a traffi c violation? Something a little lower key and more on our turf."

Pickering looked over his sunglasses at her. "His military service i s ancient history, Karen. Now he's a furniture builder or something. Hi s property is well away from any civilians and I'm not about to star t something with him on a crowded street if I don't have to. If yo u don't think you can handle this, I can find someone who can."

Another forced smile. "Yes, sir. I'll take care of it."

Chapter Seven.

Fade had read a book once by a man who could manipulate his dreams.

Just as the author entered that hypnotic state that bordere d unconsciousness, he would concentrate and draw himself into whateve r world he wanted. It was a trick Fade had been working on for years.

He'd created the world. A pleasantly mundane one in which he was a healthy father and husband with a nine-to-five job, a fe w uncontrollable kids, and a car that got depressingly good gas mileage.

But he'd never managed to inhabit it. That level of sleep hadn't com e to him for years, replaced by a deep grogginess that never seemed t o completely obscure the ceiling hovering above him or stop the endles s procession of numbers on his clock.

Tonight, it was even worse. He rubbed his burning eyes and finall y gave in, pressing his back against the bare wall behind his mattres s and cursing himself for forgetting to buy cigarettes. Not that h e actually smoked, but it was a habit he'd been meaning to take up.

At first, the sound didn't seem like much a quiet crunching that barel y managed to penetrate the heavy curtains flapping across his ope n window. Fade stopped breathing and turned his head in the darkness , listening intently. A raccoon? No, the sound, though quiet, had a certain weight to it. Another black bear looking to get at his garbag e can? Maybe. Or maybe it was Hillel Strand, coming to make him a n offer he couldn't refuse.

Fade pictured aiming a twelve-gauge at that closely shaved face an d blowing the smug expression right off it. Of course Strand wa s unlikely ever to make a personal appearance. He'd undoubtedly send a team of former Special Forces guys more qualified to persuade Fade t o see the error of his ways.

But he'd decided not to let that happen. Instead, he'd take out a s many of Strand's men as he could before they finally put a bullet i n him. A fittingly violent and futile end to a violent and futil e life.

The sound didn't come again and Fade closed his eyes, concentrating o n the image of Hillel Strand with a shotgun barrel a few inches from hi s nose. Maybe that was a dream world he could insert himself into.

Something a little closer to reality.

He'd barely settled back on the mattress when he heard another quie t crunch, this time close enough to discern detail. The depth and lengt h of it confirmed his suspicion that its source was heavy. Th e possibility of the soft pad of a bear's paw, though, was lost in th e sound's crisp edge. Based on his considerable experience, tha t particular attack and decay was only caused by one thing: a boot.

Fade remained motionless on the bed, realizing suddenly that he wasn't in the mood for this tonight. He had undoubtedly just entered the las t half hour of his life and all he could think about was how much troubl e dying was going to be. A sure sign of having lived too long.

The man rather sloppily creeping up on him was getting close enough t o force a decision. Fade had a pistol and the temptation to just shoo t halfheartedly at whatever face appeared in his window was fairl y strong. But then all that preparation and money would have bee n wasted. Seemed like a shame.

He quietly slid the blanket off his legs and crawled across the room.

Keeping the fluttering curtains in his peripheral vision, he stood an d stretched his arms overhead, unlatching a small door cut into the wal l that led to his attic. It opened smoothly on brand new hinges and h e swung himself up into it on a slightly creakier spine.

The "command center" he'd constructed didn't have the aesthetic grac e he normally strived for, but time had been short and sacrifices had t o be made. He lay down in something that looked disturbingly like a badly welded steel coffin with no lid and ran his finger along the edg e of a bank of small monitors in front of him. Finally finding a switch , he flipped it and was immediately bathed in a dim green light that he'd made sure wouldn't be visible through the door.

He turned on the rest of the monitors, careful not to bump a series o f switches he'd screwed to a piece of plywood or the heavily modifie d model airplane radio control lying next to him. After checking th e neatly arranged M16, combat knife, and 9mm pistol, he refocused hi s attention on the small screens.

The images were surprisingly detailed. It was uncanny what you coul d get off the Internet these days. Most of the stuff was measurabl y better than the supposedly state-of-the-art stuff he'd worked with a t the CIA only a few years before.

Honestly, he was surprised they worked at all. It had seemed likel y that the team sent for him would be jamming the radio transmission fro m the cameras he'd set up. Using hardwired ones had just seemed like to o much trouble. Stranger yet was that the generator he'd set up in th e basement hadn't kicked on: His power hadn't been cut. Maybe he'd los t his touch. Maybe he was hiding from a squirrel.

The squirrel didn't materialize but a man in black fatigues holding a small assault rifle did, running up beneath the night vision enable d camera hidden above Fade's front door.

A few moments later, there was motion on nearly every screen and h e silently scanned them, watching men settling into the obvious position s that he'd created by digging a few natural-looking indentions in hi s yard and breaking off a number of strategic tree branches. Once the y were settled in, two more men appeared at his back door, takin g positions on either side of it. Fade eased his nose a little closer t o the far right monitor, trying to see if anyone was covering hi s workshop, but lost interest when he realized that he'd forgotten on e obvious item. Clothes. It looked like he was going to make his las t stand in a pair of Bugs Bunny boxer shorts. At least they wer e reasonably new.

The monitor set up in the tree that would offer a sniper a perfect vie w of the front and sides of the house was still empty, which seemed kin d of strange. Did they have some new techie gizmo that made that vantag e point unnecessary? One of those unmanned things that hovered over th e battlefield like a blimp over a football game? Were those things arme d now? Something didn't feel right.

He propped himself up on his elbows and managed to shrug. Based on th e ultimate objective of this operation, it wasn't really worth getting i n a twist over the details. Besides, he'd never been one to worry abou t technology. Sure, it had its place in large theaters, but i n situations like these it just tended to split people's focus. Assuming , of course, that whatever gadget you were relying on hadn't gotten a little dirt in it and stopped working.

Truthfully, he'd bought the monitors he was using based completely o n their fun factor. If he'd known they were actually going to work, he'd have bought more and put a few farther afield. Was Strand out ther e somewhere within reach? Probably not. But Matt Egan would be. He'd be directing this little pageant, which pretty much guaranteed tha t Fade's time on this earth was coming to an end. Egan possessed a n unusual combination of creativity and anal-retentiveness that had bee n truly confidence inspiring when Fade was working for him. But now , undoubtedly, it would prove deadly.

He tried to imagine lining up his sights on Egan and pulling th e trigger but found it a much harder image to conjure than the on e starring Hillel Strand. He tried again, but couldn't get pas t centering the crosshairs. Faced with it for real, though, he tol d himself, he'd goddamn well take the shot.

One man in the front and one in the back slipped through thei r respective unlocked doors simultaneously. Fade switched to interio r cameras and watched them do an initial sweep of the living room an d kitchen before being followed by their two comrades. The remainder o f the team stayed outside, one in front and the other in back, both lyin g in the comfy indentions provided for them.

Fade continued to toggle back and forth through his interior cameras a s the four men moved cautiously through his house. After a complet e sweep, they relaxed a bit and began to turn on the lights. As promise d in the glossy brochure that had accompanied them, the amazing littl e cameras adjusted automatically to the new light levels. And they'd even been on sale.

Two of the men had taken up positions in his living room and the othe r two in his bedroom. They seemed to be just standing at the foot of hi s bed while one of them chatted into his throat mike.

Fade had access to both rooms the bedroom through the attic door an d the living room through a panel he'd cut in the ceiling. The questio n was what should he do with that access. He assumed they'd looked u p the architectural details of the house, so it seemed likely that the y would suspect he was up there. Were they trying to draw him out? Of course. It was clearly a trap, but what kind of trap? They were jus t standing there with their guns hanging at their sides. What was tha t sneaky bastard Egan up to?

He watched one of the men in the living room walk over and examine a heavy piece of steel plate with a handle welded to it lying on th e floor in front of a large fireplace. He didn't seem to know what t o make of it. In the bedroom, one of the men had taken off his glove s and was moving toward the bed, likely to see if it was still warm.

Another attempt to draw him out?

Fade smiled and shook his head. This was all ego he just didn't wan t to be outsmarted. Best to keep in mind the end result he was after: e ssentially, lots of gunfire, a few cool explosions, and his own death.

If he stayed up there much longer, the only thing he was going to di e of was curiosity.

Grabbing the M16 next to him, he lifted himself out of his steel coffi n and threw open the attic door.

The two men spun around at the sound of the door hitting the wall an d one actually managed to get off a couple panicked shots at the woo d floor before Fade's rounds hit them both in the face. He hun g partially out of the attic and squinted at the pulverized flesh an d bone beneath the men's helmets. What the hell was going on here? Ther e was just no way he should have been able to take those guys out tha t easily. No way.

The sound of running and then sudden silence made him pull back just a s a spray of bullets tore through the wall next to him.

"Attic! Attic!" he heard someone shout as he pulled the door shu t with a piece of attached rope and fell back into his coffin, coverin g his ears.

As expected, bullets began tearing through the ceiling, shattering woo d and plaster, and filling the air to the point that he had to touch hi s nose to the monitors to see them.

The man in the living room was in a half crouch, spraying bullet s wildly upward while the other man moved into the bedroom, firing a t what was left of the attic door. Their teammates outside were yellin g on their throat mikes but seemed less than eager to get any mor e involved than that.

Fade watched as the man in the living room walked more or less directl y beneath him, still firing upward. The sound of his rounds hitting th e steel tub was deafening even through the fingers he had in his ears an d he could feel the vibration as bullets struck. Then, suddenly the ma n was down. It took Fade a moment to figure out that he'd been hit b y one of his own ricochets.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he said aloud, though h e couldn't hear himself over the soldier still shooting from the bedroom.

Despite the size of the monitor, Fade could see that the man's mout h was wide open and he seemed to be screaming as he fired. He'd know fo r sure before long, because at this rate, he had only a few more second s of ammunition.

One of the monitors captured three men bursting from the trees an d sprinting across his yard. When they came up alongside the house, on e of them produced a set of bolt cutters and, predictably, cut power t o the building. Fade hit a switch and started the generator in hi s basement, rerouting the power to his new toys. The screens restarte d but after about five seconds they died again. He played with th e toggle a few more times, but nothing happened. Hard to complain; i t had held together a lot longer than he'd ever expected.

When the gun in the bedroom went silent, Fade slipped on a pair o f night vision goggles he'd found at Sharper Image, hung the mode l airplane controller across his bare chest, and dropped into the livin g room through the panel he'd cut.

The house was old, but surprisingly solid and that, combined with a n old area rug, made his landing nearly silent. He held his knife in hi s teeth as he crawled up to the man lying on the floor, but it was clea r he was dead. His own bullet had taken a downward trajectory an d penetrated his neck just above his flak jacket. Bad piece of luck , that.

Fade continued to crawl forward, finally coming alongside the open doo r to his bedroom. A quick glance behind him and he rolled inside , sweeping his rifle across the room and finding the man who had bee n shooting at him standing in the exact same place he'd been before. He turned, a fresh magazine in his left hand, an expression of confusio n on his face as Fade raised his rifle and avoided the man's body armo r by putting a round into his face.

No wonder Strand wanted him so bad. Where had he found these guys? Th e local Quaker meeting?

When Fade crawled back out into the living room, the house seemed to b e empty and he used the opportunity to take the radio off the bod y bleeding all over his genuine faux Oriental rug. He shoved th e earpiece in his ear before sliding across the floor toward th e fireplace.

"Entering through the kitchen!" the radio crackled.

That wasn't good.

He rolled right just in time to avoid the automatic rifle fire tha t suddenly erupted and fired blindly back at the kitchen as he continue d to slither toward the fireplace.

"We have a man down in the living room! I can see at least one ma n down in the bedroom!" he heard over the radio. "The suspect is movin g toward the south corner of the living room!"

It seemed likely that the guys outside were moving around to th e windows and if they made it before he could get to his enormou s fireplace, he was going to find himself at the center of a nast y crossfire. Time to take a calculated risk. He jumped to his feet an d dove over the sofa, hitting the floor on the back of his neck an d rolling onto all fours. The sound of breaking glass behind hi m prompted another burst of speed that sent him sliding across a floor h e now wished he'd spent more time polishing just as a volley bega n chipping away the brickwork in front of him. He felt a slight sting i n his hip as he crammed himself into the fireplace and grabbed the handl e on the back of the steel plate on the floor. Pulling it up, he covere d the fireplace hole in time to hear the now unmistakable ring of bullet s against metal instead of the equally familiar sound of bullets thuddin g into his flesh.

Reaching above him, he found the small penlight he'd taped to the flu e damper handle and used it to illuminate the miraculously undamage d remote control hanging around his neck. He rubbed his fingers togethe r for a moment and then ceremoniously pressed the buttons labeled kitche n and living room.

Nothing happened.

Frowning deeply, he looked around him in the darkness and then ease d his grip on the chunk of steel blocking the fireplace opening. Slidin g the remote's antenna through the narrow crack, he pressed the button s again this time with a more satisfying result. The plate was slamme d back toward him hard enough to sever the antenna and slam him hard int o the back of the fireplace.

He waited a few seconds, feeling the heat begin to creep into th e handle he was gripping and listening to the ringing in his ears, the n lowered the makeshift shield just long enough to take in the conditio n of the house.

The entire north wall was gone and he assumed most of the kitchen was , too, though he couldn't see it from his position. There were numerou s small fires burning on the floor, and on what used to be his furniture.

The smoke was on his side thick enough to obscure movement but no t thick enough to asphyxiate him. Yet.

"Report!" came a woman's voice over his commandeered radio. He ease d his grip on the steel plate again to improve reception.

"Tom's down," a slightly shaky male voice responded. "I can see hi m from my position. I can't see Jim. He was in the kitchen and th e kitchen's fucking gone."

"Maintain your position and stay cool! Any sign of the suspect?"

"No, but he's gotta be dead. Practically the whole house blew up."

"Craig! What have you got?"

"The south side of the house is pretty much intact, but the fire look s like it's getting worse. I have no movement, but there's a lot o f smoke. If he is alive in there, he isn't going to last long."

Probably true, Fade knew. But, assuming that his remote would stil l carry with a broken antenna, he'd be around longer than they would.

Fade let the steel plate fall and laid himself out flat on the floor , holding the remote as high as he could to get maximum range.

"I think I've got movement!"

"Stay where "

This time the explosions weren't as loud but the bright flashes briefl y turned the smoke from black to gray as the model airplane servos pulle d the pins from grenades he'd buried beneath the two men's exterio r positions.

"Fuck!" he heard over the radio. "I'm hit. I'm hit!" The statemen t was followed by a less than encouraging fit of wet-sounding coughing.

Obviously, the guy hadn't been where he was supposed to be. He shoul d have been lying right on top of that grenade.

An unfortunate complication. Was it the guy on the north or the guy o n the south? And was he still intact enough to shoot?

"Hold on, I'm coming." That woman's voice again. Where the hell wa s Matt in all this? Since when did he let other people direc t operations? And since when did they put women in charge of things lik e this? You've come a long way, baby.

Fade ripped off his night vision goggles and jumped to his feet , dancing clumsily through the living room as small fires and hot debri s burned his bare feet. North seemed the path of least resistance sinc e there was no wall anymore, so he chose that direction, already startin g to choke on the smoke as he ducked under the partially collapse d roof.

He ran half-crouched toward the low fire that was the last know n position of the sniper who had been posted in his front yard. As i t had been so many times before, luck was on his side and he could se e the man's black-clad body parts strewn across the dirt.

He adjusted his trajectory and ran toward his shop as fast as his bar e feet would carry him, but then spotted a set of headlights coming u p the tree-lined road that served as his driveway.

"Craig! What's your situation?" the woman shouted over hi s earpiece.

No answer.

"Craig! Talk to me!"

It turned out that the headlights belonged to an enormous black va n that was having a fairly hard time holding its speed on th e unmaintained road surface. It bucked and crashed dramatically throug h the ruts, but probably wasn't going much faster than ten miles pe r hour.

Fade slid behind a tree and lined up his rifle sights on the dar k figure driving, but then changed his mind. His plan to die tonigh t seemed like it wasn't working out. Time for a little improvisation.

He crouched low and tried to arrange a few branches around him t o obscure his white boxers from the truck's high beams as it continued t o bounce up the road.

The driver's side window was open and he could clearly see a n un-helmeted blonde head jerking back and forth inside. When she cam e up even with him, he leaped onto the running board and wrapped his han d around her soft ponytail and then slid back off onto the road.

He hadn't really considered what would have happened if she'd bee n wearing her seat belt apparently an example of the toll his years as a reclusive furniture maker had taken on him. He guessed she would hav e ended up with either a broken neck or a very unattractive bald spot.

Fortunately, she wasn't all that safety conscious and instead wa s dragged through the window relatively unharmed. She clamped her hand s around his forearm as he slammed her to the ground and the van veere d into a tree.

Pulling sideways on her hair, he tried to roll her onto her stomach bu t when he did, she let go of his forearm and grabbed his elbow. He didn't really pay much attention until she used some tricky leverage t o nearly dislocate his shoulder. Forced to release her, he found himsel f lying on his back in significant pain, reflecting on the fact that h e probably should have learned about the dangers of women by now.

She managed to fight her way to her knees, then to her feet, an d started to stumble toward her wrecked van. Fade pushed himself uprigh t and rotated his arm experimentally. No serious damage done.

She made it about twenty feet before she dropped to her knees, fumblin g at the leather strap holding her gun in its holster. He'd heard th e wind go out of her when she'd come down on the surface of the road an d there was just no way she could be getting much air. He jogged forwar d and grabbed her by the hair again and shoved her face-first to th e ground, not bothering to dodge an elbow that looked like it was throw n in slow motion.

Conveniently, she had a pair of handcuffs on her belt and he used the m to secure her hands behind her back while she concentrated o n re-learning how to breathe.

He shoved a hand beneath her waist and unbuckled her gun belt the n pinned the handcuff chain to the small of her back while he performed a quick search that yielded nothing more than a small knife and he r radio.

By the time he'd tossed her gun into the woods and thrown her painfull y over his shoulder, she was getting enough air in to make a feebl e effort to kick him in the groin.

Fade walked back into the woods and grabbed his rifle with the hand h e wasn't using to keep her from squirming off his shoulder. He was abou t to start off toward his car but instead he paused and used his toe t o press the last button on his remote control. A moment later, the to p of a tree about a hundred feet away exploded into flame. He ducke d involuntarily and watched the burning shards of wood fly off into th e night.

"I can't believe you didn't put someone up there," he said to th e weakly struggling woman. "Do you have any idea what a pain in the as s it is to climb a tree with live explosives? I worked really hard o n that."

"Let .. . Let me go," she managed to get out.

"Maybe later. We'll talk."

Chapter Eight.

It was hard for Fade to shake off the persistent sense o f disorientation buzzing at the back of his mind. It was kind of what h e imagined he'd feel like if someone aimed a gun at his head, pulled th e trigger, and discovered it wasn't loaded. When he'd gone up into hi s attic, he'd been comfortable in the certainty that he wouldn't surviv e the night. Now here he was, cruising up the highway in his underwea r with a woman who wanted to kill him in the passenger seat. Or mor e precisely, kneeling on the floor with her face in the seat and he r bound hands jammed up under the dash.

He slowed and squinted at the exit, searching his memory for a moment , then swerving onto it. The darkness deepened on the narrow rura l highway, broken only occasionally by lonely gas stations and nearl y nonexistent towns. After no less than three wrong turns, he found th e ancient industrial park he'd been searching for and eased along th e dirty, intermittently occupied facades.

The woman tensed visibly when he stopped the car and reached over he r back to pull the glove compartment open and fish out a garage doo r opener. He hadn't used it in almost five years and didn't reall y expect it to work but when he pressed the button the rusted metal doo r in front of him began to grind its way open. His lucky day.

He pulled inside and pushed the button again, closing the door behin d them. It was the only entrance to his section of the building a long , low warehouse partitioned into a number of separate bays with the sam e crumbling brick that made up its exterior. This particular unit, whic h he'd purchased with cash when he'd come back from Colombia, consiste d of three windowless rooms: the concrete pad he was parked on, a smal l living area, and a bedroom furnished only with a large safe and a mattress. Other than that, there wasn't much more than a tiny bathroo m and a closet that he'd never bothered to clear of debris.

"We're home," he said, grabbing the woman's ponytail again and using i t to drag her out through the driver's side door. She didn't bother t o resist but even in the dim light being thrown off by the door opener , she looked pretty pissed off.

He stayed close behind her as they walked, holding her own knife to he r throat with one hand and using the other to open the metal door tha t led to his makeshift living room.

When they stepped through, there was a loud click in the darkness t o their right. He jerked her around to use as a shield, reaching for th e gun-belt slung across his shoulder. Before he could get the gun free , though, a tinny version of the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" filled th e room.

Fade let out a long breath and snapped on an overhead light. Th e plastic fish that he'd purchased as a joke on himself was wrigglin g joyfully as it sang. The idea was that if he ever came back there, i t probably meant that his life was completely fucked. A pretty accurat e prediction, as it turned out.

"Would you excuse me a second?" he said as he came around the woma n and pulled the fish off the wall. He dropped it and began jumping u p and down on it, listening to the final gurgling strains of the song a s shards of plastic went skittering across the concrete floor. Despit e the superficial cuts and scrapes the plastic had inflicted on his bar e feet, he actually felt a little better.

When he looked up again, the woman was staring at him with a guarded , but still wide-eyed, expression. She was actually kind of striking , now that he took the time to notice. Probably about the same height a s he was if it weren't for the combat boots that had elevated her to a t least six feet. The black fatigues she wore were a bit formless, bu t the occasional points of contact hinted at the athleticism she'd use d to nearly tear his arm off earlier. Her longish blonde hair was a little out of place on a woman of her profession, but complemented he r slightly angular features and mildly sunburned nose. Overal l impression? Professional beach volleyball player. Or surfer. Or mayb e "What now?" she said.

Fade considered that for a moment and then began digging through a cardboard box sitting next to the sink. Finally he came up with a rol l of duct tape.

"A thousand and one uses," he said, pointing to the only chair in th e room.

She looked down at it but didn't move.

"For now at least, I seem to have the advantage," he reminded her , swinging the tape on his index finger. She sat hesitantly and h e secured the chain of her handcuffs to the back of the chair and he r ankles to the legs being careful never to put his skull in range of on e of those boots.

Satisfied that she was sufficiently stuck, he strolled into the bedroo m and ripped open a garbage bag lying in the corner. Fortunately, he'd had the presence of mind to put a few changes of clothes and a coupl e of pairs of shoes in it next to some now rock-hard Power Bars, a fe w boxes of Kraft mac and cheese, and some toiletries. It could b e surprisingly hard to buy clothes when you didn't have any. no shirt , no shoes, no service.

"Better," he said, walking back out fully clothed and scooting a plywood table in front of the woman. For being in such a nast y predicament, she was holding together pretty well. She seemed to b e furiously calculating behind those blue eyes, but truthfully she didn't have a whole lot of options to work with.

"Nice place," she said when the silence finally became to o uncomfortable for her.

He hopped up on the table. "You like it? I got it when I came back t o the States. I figured the Colombians might change their minds about m e at some point and I'd have to run. They can be kind of fickle, yo u know? In the end, though, Castel retired and I hadn't really lef t anyone alive who'd want to mess with me, so I was starting to thin k this place was a waste of money. Then you came along."

"You .. . You should turn yourself in."

She sounded a little less sure than last time she'd spoken. Th e night's events and her current situation were obviously starting t o sink in. It probably made sense to let that work for him for a bit. He tore a six-inch strip of tape from the roll and slapped it over he r mouth before heading back into the bedroom. The safe wasn't anythin g fancy he'd gotten it from Sam's Club but it was anchored solidly to th e brick wall behind it and was sturdy enough to discourage anyone but th e most industrious of thieves. Judging from the thick layer of dust o n it, there hadn't been any.

Fade rubbed his hands together vigorously and attacked the combinatio n dial. On the fourth try he got it and pulled back the heavy door , exposing neatly organized racks of weapons, cash, disguises, and othe r accessories for the fugitive who had everything.

First, he pulled down a shoe box full of documents held together wit h rubber bands. Each grouping had a passport, driver's license, and a t least two credit cards. The first one he pulled out had a picture o f him with a long beard and the name Mohammed Fasal. Clever before 9/11 b ut probably no longer ideal for deflecting suspicion. The second on e seemed a little more appropriate and he dropped it in a duffel alon g with the disguise he'd been wearing when the passport photo had bee n taken.

The woman in the other room seemed to be getting a bit impatient h e could hear the chair rocking back and forth as she struggled to fre e herself from it. When he peeked around the doorway she stopped.

Another ten minutes and he'd taken inventory of everything in the saf e and filled his duffel with what he'd need that day. After closing th e door and spinning the dial, he walked back out and ripped the tape of f the woman's mouth.

"Goddamnit!"

"Has anyone ever told you that you exude a lot of negative energy?"

She obviously wasn't sure how to respond to that so she just watche d silently as he hopped up on the table again.

"Let's talk."

"Why don't you take the rest of the tape off and we will."

He smirked and shook his head.

"Tough guy like you afraid of a woman?"

"I've been given good reason to be afraid of women. Besides, I'v e heard about you."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Not you specifically," Fade said, casually crossing his legs. "Bu t I'd heard that the military was training female Special Forces t o deploy in the Middle East. I figured it wasn't true because it's actually a good idea. A bunch of Christian army guys frisking women i n Afghanistan just doesn't make us many friends. I guess the program's a little further along than I thought."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Uh, Special Forces, the Middle East, religious dif..."

"I'm a cop!"

"Uh huh."

"Look, why don't you just tell me what you want? Then I can help you , okay? I want to keep this from getting any worse than it is."

"How could it get any worse?"

Her brow actually knitted for a moment as she considered the question.

"You could kill me."

Fade shrugged. "Worse for you, but not really either here or there t o me."

"You don't want to get in any dee "

"What's your name?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Karen."

"Okay, Karen. Let's cut to the chase. You want to survive and I wan t to know all about Strand. Why don't we make a trade?"

"What? I don't know any Strand."

Fade frowned deeply. "Have you not looked around? If there was an y time to start running on at the mouth this would be it."

"Look, I don't know what you think is going on "

"You don't seem stupid to me, Karen, so don't act stupid. Do you thin k Strand would risk his life to protect you?"

She fidgeted in her chair to the degree the tape would allow and stare d down at the floor, obviously unsure how to proceed. It was probably a full thirty seconds before she looked up at him again.

"Maybe you have some problems .. . Maybe some stuff you saw when yo u were in the navy messed you up. The courts take that kind of stuf f into consideration. I really can help you."

Fade couldn't help laughing. "The courts, huh?" He slid off the tabl e and grabbed her hair again, yanking her head back. "Listen to me. I d on't want to hurt you but I do want Strand and I'll do to you whateve r I have to to get him. Did I mention that I was trained i n interrogation techniques by the Israelis? So why don't you just tel l me where he works, where he lives, and how much juice he's got. The n we'll go from there."

"I don't "

He wrenched her head back far enough to cut off her air and notice d that her eyes weren't really blue. One was but the other was mor e green.

"No one's going to find you here, Karen. I can do anything I want t o you for as long as it takes. Why don't we just bypass all tha t unpleasantness and go straight to the information part."

He released her and she damn near managed to take a bite out of hi s hand as he was withdrawing it. Credit where credit was due she ha d guts.

"I don't know who you're talking about, you paranoid son of a bitch! So why don't you just shut up and kill me like you did my men? We bot h know you're going to anyway."

He leaned back against the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You should learn to control that temper, Karen. It'll get you i n trouble some day."

This was getting more complicated than he'd anticipated. The smar t move was to torture her for information, kill her, and then go cu t Hillel Strand's heart out with a spoon. But, while it really was tru e that he'd been trained by those scumbag Israelis, he'd never actuall y used any of that training. And he sure as hell wasn't going to star t now. If she called his bluff, he was more or less out of luck.

"So you're a cop?"

"Yes! I don't know who you think I am, but I swear to God I'm just a cop. We weren't looking to hurt you. Just to arrest you and give yo u your day in court."

Fade nodded thoughtfully. "I would think that a bunch of cops gettin g shot up in the Virginia countryside would be big news."

She didn't respond and he thumbed behind him at a small black and whit e TV on the floor.

"So, it stands to reason that if you're telling the truth and I turn o n my TV here, I'll be on damn near every channel."

He had to admit that she was pretty good. Her slightly perplexed shru g was perfect. No doubt her excuse when he flipped on an old episode o f Jeopardy would be equally practiced.

It took a few moments for the old television to warm up, but when i t did, Fade found himself looking at his front yard and what was left o f his house. A reporter stood in front of a barrier of police tap e speaking into a microphone.

"... appear to have walked into an ambush led by Salam al Fayed. We don't have any information on the warrant for al Fayed, however, ther e is speculation that he is wanted on suspicion of terrorist activitie s ..."

Fade fell over backward from his crouched position, landing on his as s as he remained glued to the screen. He'd heard sirens closing in a s he'd been driving away, but he'd just assumed that one of his neighbor s had called about the explosions.

"We do have confirmation that a number of police officers were injure d in this attack, though we don't have any particulars at this point.

What we do know, though, is that the SWAT team leader, Karen Manning , has disappeared." A photo of the woman taped to the chair behind hi m flashed on the screen. "If anyone has any information regarding he r whereabouts, the police are asking you to call immediately "

Fade snapped off the television and then withdrew his hand as thoug h he'd been burned.

"No way," he said, standing and backing up until he bumped the wal l behind him. "There's just no way .. ."

He suddenly remembered feeling a wallet in the back pocket of th e woman's fatigues and he reached through the slats of the chair for i t as she tried to squirm away.

Her driver's license was encased in plastic on one side and the nam e matched. Karen Manning. A little more digging and he came up with a business card and ID identifying her as Detective Karen Manning, a Virginia cop.

"Jesus Christ!" he shouted. "What were you doing out there, Karen?

What on earth would make you do something like that? Are you nuts?

What did you think would happen?"

"I told you," she said in a tone obviously calculated to calm him. "We weren't there to hurt you. We were just there to arrest you and giv e you your day in court."

"Arrest me? For what? I didn't do anything. I don't do anything. I m ean nothing at all. I sit around by myself and build mediocr e furniture." He thumbed back toward the television. "And don't eve n say you think I'm a terrorist, because that's just bullshit racia l profiling."

She watched him carefully, but didn't answer.

"For the time being, at least, this is still America, right? Don't I h ave a right to know what I'm being arrested for?"

"I wasn't the investigating officer, Mr. al Fayed, but m y understanding is that you're suspected of working for the Colombia n cartels and of involvement in the deaths of the Ramirez brothers."

"The Ramirez brothers?" he shouted. "Who the fuck are the Ramire z brothers?"

"Mr. al Fayed .. . Maybe you should just try to take a few dee p breaths and relax."

Instead he picked up one of the larger pieces of his singing fish an d smashed it repeatedly into the wall. Defending himself against a bunc h of Homeland Security assassins was one thing they would have known wh o they were up against and that they probably weren't all going home. Bu t a police SWAT team sent in blind? That was a whole other thing .. .

"Mr. al Fayed! Calm down! Please."

"You calm down! I just killed a bunch of cops."

"And kidnapped another."

"Seems kind of irrelevant at this point," he said, dropping what wa s left of the fish and taking a position directly in front of her. "Wh o told you I killed the Fernandez brothers?"

"Ramirez. And I don't know. Apparently we got a tip."

"From who?"

"I think it was anonymous, but I'm not sure .. ."

"Bullshit! You don't send a SWAT team out to a person's house becaus e someone called 911 and said I was a bad person."

"Like I said, I'm not the investigating officer."

"Shit!" Fade yelled and began pacing back and forth across the tin y room. What had happened was pretty clear. Strand somehow found ou t about the Colombians and figured he'd use it. Then, after Fade ha d cooled his heels in the clink for a few weeks, Strand would come an d offer to spring him. For a price.

Unfortunately, things hadn't worked out quite that smoothly.

He finally stopped pacing, positioning himself behind Karen and pullin g her knife from his pocket. She tried to crane her head around to se e him but her bonds wouldn't allow it.

"I guess you wouldn't believe me if I told you I was sorry, would you , Karen?"

Chapter Nine.

The dust blowing off the deserted dirt road was almost enough to blin d him, but Fade left the window down anyway. From a weather perspectiv e at least, the morning had turned out beautifully still air almos t completely lacking in humidity beneath a cloudless sky. He leane d forward and turned the car's underpowered CD player up another notch.

In his experience, it was almost impossible to be depressed whe n listening to the Go-Gos. The Ramones and The Monkees were a clos e second and third, but he was convinced that a giant loudspeaker playin g "Beauty and the Beat" could bring peace to Congo.

The trip odometer turned over twenty miles and Fade skidded the car t o a stop in the quickly diminishing shade of a tree.

"End of the line."

Karen Manning lifted her face from the car seat and looked up at him , eyes registering the fear that she wouldn't let her face show.

"Oh. Sorry, bad choice of words." Fade leaned over her and threw th e passenger door open. A solid shove sent her rolling into a dense patc h of weeds next to the car.

He stepped on the gas, accelerating quickly enough for the door to sla m itself shut and did a one-eighty in the road, leaving a cloud of dus t that almost completely obscured the woman struggling to her feet wit h her hands cuffed behind her.

As he passed, she tripped on something and rolled down into a dry cree k bed. It was kind of a pathetic scene and, as he watched her in th e rearview mirror, he started to think maybe he was being overly harsh.

Jamming his foot down on the brake pedal, he slammed the car int o reverse and pulled up even with her, once again creating a nearl y opaque cloud of dust.

She was letting out an impressive stream of obscenities as she tried t o extract herself from the creek bed without the use of her hands an d Fade jumped out of the car to help.

"Mouth like that, you should have been in the navy," he said, grabbin g her under one arm and hauling her to her feet. "Do you have a key fo r the handcuffs?"

Her eyes shifted almost imperceptibly toward the breast pocket of he r shirt and he reached for it, but she jerked back.

"You sure? It's gonna be hard to get those things over your boots an d ever harder to take the boots off. How about if I promise that unde r no circumstances will I enjoy a single moment of feeling you up?"

"You just stay away from me."

"Your call."

He reached through his car's back window and pulled out a liter bottl e of water, which he dropped on the ground. "It's twenty miles straigh t back up this road to the main highway. You look pretty fast, but it's gonna get hot today and that's not a lot of water. Watch your pace an d try to stay in the shade where you can." He turned and started t o climb back into the car.

"Wait. You've got to give yourself up. You've got no chance."

Fade smiled and looked back at her. "I don't get your logic."

"You just killed a bunch of cops and they're going to pull out th e stops to get you. Give yourself up now and let me take you in. I'm willing to personally guarantee your safety. Then you'll have a chanc e to get a lawyer and tell your side of the story. If you honestl y thought you were being attacked and were in danger, a jury will liste n to that."

"I don't think so. Thanks for the offer, though."

"Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? By now, ther e are pictures of you all over the TV. The police will be in the proces s of contacting everyone you ever knew and looking into everywhere you'v e ever been. That's no way to live."

"As sad as it sounds, it's a step up for me." He tried to get back i n the car again but she actually moved to block him.

"More people could get hurt."

"I can almost guarantee it."

He grabbed her shoulders to move her aside, but as he did, his cel l phone started to ring. Sighing quietly, he pulled it from his pocket.

"Probably Mrs. Melman wondering why I haven't delivered her daughter's hope chest. Woman's driving me nuts .. ."

The number registering on caller ID didn't look familiar, and the fac t that he didn't have any friends, combined with the fact that his numbe r was unlisted, suggested that the call related in some way to las t night.

"Look familiar?" he said, holding the phone up in front of Karen.

"My boss's direct line."

"What's his name?"

"Seymore Pickering."

"You made that up."

"Why would I lie? That's really his name."

Fade shrugged and pressed the phone to his ear. "Good morning , Seymore."

The silence on the other end suggested that this man's mother indee d had named him Seymore Pickering.

"Am I speaking to Salam al Fayed?"

"Yup."

"I want to know where Karen Manning is. Has she been harmed?"

"I wouldn't really say harmed. A little dented .. ."

"I want to talk to her."

"Relax, Seymore. She's fine. You have my word."

"Then you won't mind putting her on. As a gesture of good will."

Fade rolled his eyes and held the phone up to Karen's ear. She glance d at his car, probably considering blurting out a description, but the n wisely thought better of it. It seemed likely the cops had th e description already anyway.

"Captain? I'm fine."

Fade pulled the phone back. "See? You should try to be mor e trusting."

"You have no reason to keep her or hurt her, Mr. al Fayed. She wa s just doing her job. As a former soldier, you should understan d that."

"Whatever."

"I want you to let her go."

"Okay."

Another confused silence. "Uh, what do you want in return?"

"Nothing that I can think of."

A third silence. This guy wasn't exactly a rivetin g conversationalist.

"I want you to turn yourself in, Mr. Fayed. I can guarantee you r safety "

"It's al Fayed and let me stop you there. I've already been throug h this with Officer Manning. So why don't we just cut through the crap.

Here's the situation, Seymore: I've got a couple of things I need to d o and they don't include getting a lethal injection. You've got som e freak running around Virginia killing young women and making you loo k like a jerk. So why don't you focus on that for a while and stay th e hell away from me. In return for that small favor, I can pretty muc h guarantee you I'll be dead in a month."

"You know as well as I do that I can't just ignore this. Even if I w anted to."

"Yeah, I guess not .. ." When Fade spoke again, his voice had softene d slightly. "Look, I'm sorry about your men. Tell their families that.

Tell them that they fought really well and showed a lot of courage. I d on't know if they're going to want to hear that. Probably not. Wha t I'm trying to say here is that I don't want to get into it with an y more of your guys. But if they start shooting at me, I'm going t o shoot back. And I almost never come up on the short end of those kind s of exchanges."

"Mr. Fayed "

Fade hung up and threw the phone back through the car window. "It's a l Fayed, you dick," he mumbled to no one in particular and then slappe d Karen on the shoulder. "Catch you later."

Her eyes widened again in that nearly imperceptible way that was kin d of endearing.

"It's just a figure of speech," he said as he slid behind the wheel.

"You need to lighten up."

Fade couldn't help laughing at his reflection in the rearview mirro r that was now wedged in the trunk of a tree. His long black hair wa s gone, replaced by a blond crewcut that had an unnatural red hue in th e sun. There was a tiny drop of blood around the post of the gol d earring he'd shoved through his left lobe, and a pair of blue-tinted , wire-rimmed glasses finished things off. The overall effect wasn't a s startling as he had expected he'd managed only to transform himsel f from a hippie Arab assassin into a gay Arab assassin. It seemed almos t certain now that he was going to meet his maker looking like Sadda m Hussein's hairdresser.

Stranger still was the fact that while he was chopping his hair off , he'd noticed his hands were rock steady. They'd been shakin g incessantly for years not enough to be generally noticeable, but enoug h to be a pain in the ass during fine cabinet work. The slight tightnes s in his chest that had become so ubiquitous was gone too, leaving hi m feeling .. . good. Really good.

He flashed a wide smile at the mirror and tried to decide if he looke d insane. More or less. But was it just the hair and the glasses o r something deeper? A little bit of both, he supposed. Having half th e cops in America wanting to put a bullet in his skull shouldn't be a n occasion for celebration, but with his history it also couldn't b e dismissed as all bad either. Killing Hillel Strand and Matt Egan gav e him a purpose something he'd been lacking for too long. The cops jus t added an extra dash of excitement.

The worst case scenario for him was that he failed to get those tw o assholes before they got him. Not the worst thing in the world i t certainly put an end to the loneliness, boredom, and low-grade pani c he'd been living with since his injury. So a few weeks of heat an d flash and then it would be all over. Not exactly a lottery win, but i t beat the hell out of what had come before it.

Fade tore the bandage from the self-inflicted wound on his wrist , loaded his wallet with the documents that matched the disguise he'd chosen, and then glanced at his watch. He'd stopped about fiftee n miles from where he'd left Karen Manning and had probably already bee n there too long. The cops would have gotten his general location fro m his cell phone and if he read Karen right, she was running.

Chapter Ten.

She was pushing too hard running at close to the speed she would hav e in college when she'd been nationally ranked in the ten thousan d meters. Slowing down, though, meant taking the advice of the man wh o had butchered her entire team so instead she sped up, intensifying th e burning in her lungs and the draw of the bottle of water sloshin g seductively in her hand. Anger and frustration managed to overpowe r her lack of fitness and combat boots, allowing her to maintain tha t pace for more than ten minutes before she began to stumbl e uncontrollably. Finally, she stopped and sagged against a tree , bending at the waist and coughing violently as she tried to hide fro m the sun.

She'd always used running to shut out the rest of the world. The wors e things were, the harder she went, ratcheting up her suffering unti l everything just drowned in it. But she'd never had to face anythin g like this before. There was just no pace hard enough to silence th e panicked voices of her men right before they went irretrievabl y silent.

"Pull it together, Karen," she said between gasps.

This wasn't about her. She had to get to the highway as fast as sh e could and doing twenty miles in a series of two-mile sprints wasn't going to get that done. She started running again, with a mor e reasonable gait, but began to falter almost immediately.

What was the hurry, really? Al Fayed, while very possibly completel y out of his mind, didn't strike her as stupid. He'd have dropped he r off far enough out that he'd be long gone before she could contact th e office and tell them .. . what? In the end, she'd wind up sitting i n the interrogation room answering questions that would becom e increasingly accusatory and probably wouldn't contribute at all t o catching him. Or bring her men back from the dead.

She tried to run again, but made it only a few steps before slowing t o a walk.

The tension since she'd taken the job as SWAT team leader had bee n almost unbearable between her and management, between her and her men.

Between her and just about everyone. Was that an excuse? No. Th e bottom line was that she had been in charge. She had planned th e assault; she'd given the order to go in. And now they all were dead.

What she didn't completely understand was how. She'd done everythin g she'd been trained to do based on al Fayed's military history, she'd been absolutely fanatic about playing everything by the numbers. She'd been prepared for a violent, paranoid asshole with a stack of automati c rifles and a deep-seated hatred for authority. SEAL or no SEAL, thi s guy had walked through her and her men like they weren't there.

Based on the elaborate booby traps and the fact that he was hiding i n the attic armed to the teeth, it seemed almost certain that he'd bee n ready for them. Or was he just a complete paranoid and had bee n waiting every night for the last five years to be attacked?

Karen considered herself a fairly good judge of people and based o n that, she more or less believed everything al Fayed had told her. Or at least she believed that he believed what he'd said. Clearly, he ha d been expecting someone named Strand. Maybe someone attached to th e Colombian cartels he'd worked for? Kind of a long time ago, but i t wasn't out of the question that those types of people might hold a grudge. Another interesting point was that he seemed genuinely not t o have a clue who the Ramirez brothers were. And then there was the od d fact that she was still alive. After killing that many cops, sh e seemed like kind of a glaring loose end.

Karen took a measured sip of her water and started out again, this tim e at a pace that she could maintain to the highway and that would allo w her to think to try to recall every detail of her conversation with a l Fayed. While she hadn't panicked, she had been scared half to death.

Being taped to a chair by a psycho who had taken out an entire SWAT t eam singlehandedly wasn't a situation she'd ever thought to prepar e herself for.

Chapter Eleven.

Matt Egan threw open the door to Strand's office and pointed at Lauren , who was scribbling on a notepad as her boss spoke.

"Out!"

She looked up at him then at Strand before deciding that a quick exi t was probably in her best interest. Egan stepped aside and held th e door open as she hustled, head down, through it.

"What the hell do you think " Strand started.

"Are you crazy?" Egan shouted, slamming the door hard enough to rattl e the framed photos on the wall. "You sent the cops over there? Th e cops? That was a fucking stroke of genius, wasn't it?"

"I think maybe you should keep in mind who you're talking to and th e position you're in," Strand said with calm that looked a littl e practiced.

"The position I'm in?"

"What exactly did you say to him when you two were alone, Matt? Di d you warn him?"

"Is that a joke?"

Strand was leaning back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach.

"I'm not sure what choice I had here, Matt. Al Fayed a former America n soldier was working for the drug cartels. The police should have bee n called in a long time ago. But his involvement was covered up. By you. And now, perhaps also because of you, he was expectin g something.

The police should have been able to just walk in there and catch hi m sleeping."

One of the many sad ironies in all this was that Egan actually ha d considered calling Fade and telling him that Strand knew about hi s connection to the cartels. He'd quickly abandoned the idea, though. I t would have been impossible to predict how he'd react. Better to jus t let Strand play his hand and deal with it then. The new director o f Homeland Security was a former Marine general and an honorable man.

Egan could go to him and tell him everything a move that would probabl y end his career and maybe land him in jail, but would hopefully leav e Fade to live out what was left of his life in peace.

How the hell could he have anticipated that Strand would do somethin g this stupid?

"Nice speech, Hillel. Are there hidden mikes in here or are you jus t trying to convince yourself? You set Fade up so you could swoop in an d save him later in return for him kissing your ass and going to work fo r you. How much did the cops know? How much did you tell them?"

"They had full access to his military record and any other informatio n they wanted to dig up. That's their job."

"But his military record doesn't really tell the whole story, does it?

You sent a bunch of cops up against one of the most efficient killer s this country ever produced and now they're dead. Strange, though, tha t I haven't seen your name on the TV you being the law-abiding hero o f this story and all."

"The police knew he was a former SEAL," Strand said, the volume of hi s voice rising a bit. "And an enforcer for the Colombian cartels. I d on't think they needed me to tell them he was dangerous."

He had to hand it to Strand. The man was the master of his arena.

Unfortunately, that arena was political and he seemed completel y incapable of seeing beyond it. The time might be coming that he'd hav e to learn, though. Fade had never been all that interested in workin g through bureaucratic channels.

"Why don't you just calm down and sit, Matt."

Egan didn't move.

"I'm just trying to be a little bit practical here," he continued. "I f a l Fayed is captured and goes to trial, this is all going to come out.

That could be very damaging to the country, to our relationship wit h the Arabs, and frankly to you personally."

Matt shook his head slowly. It wasn't hard to picture Strand speakin g earnestly to a group of enraged congressmen, carefully shifting blame.

It would go something like, "I first came into contact with al Fayed i n order to interview him for a position at Homeland Security. Obviously , we're looking to get the best people possible to protect this grea t country against the ever-present threat of terrorism. Unfortunately , we discovered that he'd been involved in the drug trade and had n o choice but to call the police with that information. Of course, we di d this anonymously to protect our intelligence sources. Only later di d it come to my attention that my deputy, Matt Egan that's E-G-A-N ha d been involved in this illegal and irresponsible cover-up."

"If it was anyone but you, Hillel, I'd think they were just playin g dumb. But you really are this stupid, aren't you? You have no ide a what you've done. Not a fucking clue .. ."

"Stand down!" Strand shouted from behind his desk. He was famous fo r his extensive knowledge of military jargon, though it was widely know n that he had transferred from the Naval Academy to Harvard after a whopping three weeks.

"Do you just want to ignore this situation?" Strand continued, th e anger still audible in his voice. "Or do you want to sit your ass dow n and talk rationally about what needs to be done? I assume that yo u agree that it isn't exactly in your best interest or the police's fo r them to find al Fayed before we do .. ."

The sentence seemed to hang in the air, purposely unfinished. Ega n decided to finish it.

"And get rid of him."

Strand frowned slightly in an expression that clearly signaled hi s agreement. No matter how slick he was, Strand figured that there wa s no way al Fayed could be run through the legal system without gettin g everyone involved dirty. A situation made even more complicated by th e fact that if Egan went down over this, he'd do everything in his powe r to make sure he took his boss with him.

"Where would he go, Matt? Friends? Family? Would he leave th e country? Maybe go back to Colombia? Or maybe somewhere like Syri a where he could blend in and we'd have a hard time tracking him?"

Egan stared down at his boss for a few more seconds, shook his head i n disbelief, and then walked out.

Chapter Twelve.

"Is your mind closed, or is it just your ears?"

Matt turned away from a sink full of dishes and looked at his wife, bu t didn't say anything. She was leaning over Kali's shoulder, silentl y supervising the crayon selection being used in the creation o f tonight's portrait. It was the rule of the house Kali had to produc e something artistic before she got her daily hour of television. Elis e tended to lump TVs in with handguns and household poisons on the dange r scale, and he'd had to fight tooth and nail just to get her to agree t o have one in the house. The hour-for-a-portrait exchange was jus t another of the many bizarre compromises that made their marriag e work.

"Matt?" she said, finally looking up at him. "Are you in there?"

"I was listening."

He'd first seen Elise at a party his former neighbor, a reasonabl y successful sculptor, had asked him to. It was obvious that th e invitation had been semi rhetorical and offered mostly because the gu y was afraid of him, but Egan had gone anyway. Mostly just to get a glimpse at a world he'd never had an opportunity to see. At the time , he was still adjusting to his move from the army to the CIA and was i n the process of trying to expand his horizons a bit. Having said that , he remembered he'd still had the buzz cut and walked into the part y like he had a broom handle up his ass.

Predictably, the other guests had given him a wide berth. After abou t a half an hour, he'd taken to pinning people in corners, trying ou t increasingly friendly and innocuous opening lines, only to have hi s quarry squirm back and forth for a few seconds before breaking free.

Eventually, he'd resigned himself to stuffing tasteless vegetarian hor s d'oeuvres in his mouth and watching from the sidelines. Elise was har d to miss. The combination of her striking physical appearance and th e completely unselfconscious theatrical quality of her movements create d a weird charisma. Even from a distance.

Not surprisingly, he wasn't the only person who noticed she wa s constantly surrounded by people who looked and acted more like admirer s than friends. He abandoned the bowl of tabbouleh and found some lonel y wall space close enough to her to eavesdrop. After ten minutes or so , he managed to piece together a few things. First, that she was som e kind of musician. Second, that she took the praise being heaped on he r with considerable discomfort constantly trying to change the subjec t from her to the people around her.

He'd considered trying to talk to her, sensing that she might b e relieved to have a conversation with someone who had no clue who sh e was, but the crowd around her never diminished. Besides, what would h e have to say that could possibly interest a woman like that?

Eventually, he wandered back to the food table and by the time h e raised his head from the sushi rolls, she'd disappeared. With her gon e and his stomach uncomfortably full, there didn't seem to be muc h holding him there. After embarrassing the hell out of his neighbor b y profusely thanking him for the invitation in front of all his friends , Egan had grabbed a fresh beer and headed out into the night.

He wandered toward his house, reading the socially conscious bumpe r stickers on the cars lined up along the curb and ignoring the sound o f someone in a rusted panel van trying to start a very sick-soundin g motor. He knew a fair amount about engines, but didn't stop. Hell i f he was going to get all greasy for some person who wouldn't lowe r himself to say three words to him. And why weren't they on a bicycl e anyway? Wouldn't that be more environmentally friendly?

The would-be driver kept trying and the engine kept refusing. Afte r another fifty feet, Egan, starting to feel guilty, sighed quietly an d turned around.

"You wouldn't happen to be a brilliant mechanic who works on a completely philanthropic basis, would you?"

He froze as the young woman stepped from the van and stared sadly a t the hood without bothering to open it. It was her.

Fortunately, it only took a few seconds for him to realize he wa s standing motionless on the sidewalk for no apparent reason. A quic k recovery sent him strolling casually up next to her.

"I'm a marginal mechanic with an occasional charitable streak."

"Beggars can't be choosers. My name's Elise." She looked straigh t into his eyes when she offered her hand, giving the impression that sh e didn't see his dopey clothes and nearly nonexistent hair. "You were a t the party, right? Holding up the wall?"

"That was me." For some reason he'd expected her skin to be cold bu t it wasn't. "Why don't you pop the hood and I'll take a look."

A three-minute examination with a penlight she'd dug from a pile o f junk on her floorboard was all he needed.

"When you use the word 'hopeless,"" she said, "do you mean a bi t forlorn or truly despondent?"

"Probably somewhere in between. You're looking at about two hundre d and fifty bucks."

"No way to just give it a few good kicks so I can get home?"

" 'fraid not. Do you have Triple-A?"

She shook her head.

He'd offered to give her a ride home and, surprisingly, she'd taken hi m up on it despite the fact that the party was lousy with people wh o would have given their eyeteeth to do it.

He couldn't remember how the conversation had come around to politics , but it had and she'd displayed a not too surprising activist libera l streak. He, on the other hand, had been smack in the middle of hi s brief "humanity is doomed" period and thrown every plot she had to hel p the downtrodden back in her face. He'd seen a lot in his short lif e and had come to the conclusion that the downtrodden were downtrodde n because they deserved to be. It wasn't about poor soil and drought. I t was about culture and politics.

Now, why he'd not just agreed with everything this unbelievabl e creature sitting in his passenger seat had said, he still wasn't sure.

Some unhealthy combination of nervousness and self-doubt, probably.

By the time she stepped out into her driveway, she was pretty angry.

Which made it all the more strange when she'd called him the next da y and told him she was doing some reading to prepare for continuing thei r discussion at the Italian restaurant around the corner from he r house.

"Matt?" Elise sang. "Oh, Matt, darling."

He blinked. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong with you tonight? You look like you're auditioning for a zombie movie."

"Uh, I've got a business trip."

"A what?"

"It just came up today."

"What are you talking about? When?"

"I have to leave tonight."

"Tonight?"

"It just came up."

"You said that already."

He nodded dumbly. Fade was probably still in the process of workin g through his new reality, but pretty soon he'd get his shit together an d then there was no telling what he'd do. Actually, that wasn't true. I t wasn't hard to predict at all.

"How long are you going to be gone?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"A day? A month? A year?"

"Maybe a week?"

"Where are you going?"

"Kind of around .. ."

Elise's mouth hung open for a moment and then she patted Kali on he r head and told her to go watch TV.

"But I'm not finished."

"You can let your audience finish it in their minds, honey. It coul d be a catalyst for their own imagination."

Kali had no idea what that meant, but a moment later it sunk in tha t her TV time was going to be extended and she ran off before her mothe r could change her mind.

"Have a seat, Matt."

"The dishes aren't done."

She pointed to a chair and he did as he was told.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me this isn't an operational job. We talked about this before w e adopted Kali. You're too old and you have a family now. You're a paper pusher."

"I am a paper pusher. I'm "

"You agreed to this, Matt." She waved her hand around the kitchen.

"You wanted all this. I didn't stand here and dictate your life t o you."

He was not in the habit of lying to her and it was making hi m uncomfortable enough to turn him defensive. "I don't know what yo u want me to say, Elise. When you and Madonna are like sisters, maybe I c an quit. But for now, a job is a job."

"Don't even go there, Matt. If you're walking out of here tomorrow t o go shoot Afghans, I can damn well get a nine-to-five job in soun d production or something. I "

The ringing of his cell phone interrupted her train of thought. "Fo r God's sake, Matt! That's the fifth time tonight. Pick it up or tur n it off!"

The previous five times it had been Hillel Strand, who was obviously a bit concerned about him disappearing from the office after thei r meeting. He was undoubtedly wondering if his deputy had found an angl e he hadn't covered.

Egan pulled the phone from his pocket and was about to shut it off, bu t then realized it wasn't Strand's number appearing in the window. He couldn't remember ever seeing it before.

"Matt?"

He felt an uncomfortable jolt of adrenaline and held a hand up , silencing her and hoping the blood hadn't drained visibly from hi s face. She was looking right at him.

"Hello," he said, pressing the phone to his ear.

"Hello, Matt."

"Could you hold on for a second?"

"Sure. Why not."

Egan pressed the mute button and walked around the table. "I'm sorry," h e said, kissing her on top of the head. "I don't want you to get a nine-to-five job and I'm not going to shoot any Afghans. It's just a training thing. That's all."

She didn't seem convinced, but there wasn't anything that he could d o about that now. He clicked the mute off and started for his den.

"Hello, Fade."

"Cops. That wasn't nice."

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I had nothing t o do with that."

"I don't suppose I would. You've been spying on me, man. Who els e would have known about the Colombians? Who else would have cared wha t I did after I left?"

Egan closed the door and sat down behind his desk, not bothering t o turn on a light. The moon glowing outside the window was enough to se e by and he couldn't shake the feeling that Fade might be across th e street with a rifle.

"There were .. ." Egan let his voice trail off. What was the point?

"What's done is done, Fade."

No response.

"So where do we stand?"

"You fucked me, man. Again."

"You know, I'm getting a little tired of hearing this shit. I went t o the very top to get you that surgery. And when you went to Colombia t o get the money yourself, I covered it up "

"Thank God you've got my back, huh? Without you, my life might b e screwed up."

"What did you want me to do? Put a gun to the president's head and ge t him to write your doctor a check? This is Washington, Fade. No t Rwanda. If I'd had the fucking money, I'd have given it to you myself.

You know that."

Silence.

"So where are we, Fade? How do we get out of this?"

"There is no way out."

"Bullshit. What if I help you leave the country? How much money d o you have? Enough to live on?"

"You're remembering me stupider than I am, Matt. You and Strand got a bunch of cops killed to make a point. I doubt you're going to take th e chance that information or anything else I might have to say could com e out in court. I imagine it'd be a little tough on your careers."

"Fade, we can "

"You can what? Just let this go? What about the cops? Are they jus t going to forget about me? Are you going to give me a few million an d set me up in a beachfront place in Brazil? Or maybe you think I ough t to just slink off there myself and hide in a sewer until my legs don't work anymore. Come on, Matt. Say it. I want to hear you say it, yo u son of a bitch. Say, "Come in, Fade. We'll fix this. We'll put i t all right again." "

"I can't make guarantees not about things I don't have control over.

All I can tell you is that I'll do my best."

"Your best isn't good enough, though, is it? I've never gotte n anything but fucked by your best."

"Fade "

"I let it slide the first time, man. But not again. I'm not lookin g forward to it, but I'm going to kill you."

Egan had known where this conversation was going from the beginning bu t actually hearing the words hit him hard. Suddenly, breathing didn't seem to come naturally and he had to concentrate on not stopping.

Nothing had ever felt like this before not even when he'd worked in th e field. The difference, of course, was simple. Back then, he hadn't had all that much to lose. So what now? Argue? Beg? Reason? To o little too late. Always too little too late.

"I ... I assume it goes without saying that Elise and Kali are out o f this, right? Nothing happens in front of them."

"And I assume it goes without saying that you're still man enough no t to hide behind them?"

Matt nodded into the phone. "See you soon, Fade."

Chapter Thirteen.

"All I'm saying, Karen, is it's kind of strange that he drilled you r entire team and left you without a goddamn scratch."

The interrogation room was what anyone who watched television woul d expect: gray walls, a single table surrounded with uncomfortabl e chairs, a small window covered in chicken wire. The fact that she wa s there and not in a slightly more cheerful conference room probabl y wasn't good news. On the other hand, maybe it was a blessing i n disguise at least it blocked out the rest of the precinct. When she'd walked through it that morning, she'd been preceded by dead silence an d followed by quiet whispers. No one bothered to hide the fact that the y were staring and very few bothered to hide their animosity.

"Your team's dead. And you're sitting here sipping tea." Not a n entirely accurate statement. All reports suggested that Erin was goin g to pull through. And she was drinking a Coke. Karen leaned back i n her chair and looked up at Captain Pickering, who seemed content t o stand against the wall and let Ken, the department's top interrogator , do the heavy lifting.

"I just want you to tell me why you think that is, Karen." It was th e fifth time this particular question had come up. The first time it wa s delivered in a friendly, offhand way. Now, though, Ken was leanin g over the table, supporting himself with his knuckles, face turning a light shade of pink. The fact that this puffy jerk thought he coul d intimidate her was just more proof that no one in this organization ha d a clue who she was. They were still locked onto what they needed he r to be.

"He was kind of cute so I fucked his brains out. After that, I gues s he thought it would be rude to kill me."

Ken's jaw tightened. "Maybe he wants something from you goin g forward?"

"What would that be exactly?"

"I don't know. Maybe you made a deal with him. He lets you go and yo u give him information about our investigation." He softened so suddenl y and perceptibly that there was little doubt it was affected. "I sur e as hell might have if I'd been in your situation. Tied to a chair b y some psycho ..."

The general theme taking shape was that her guys had fought valiantl y and died heroically while she cowered and bargained to save her neck.

No big surprise. Many of the men she worked with had turned searchin g for her weaknesses into a full-time job. Whenever she failed a t anything, they were there with yet another blonde joke. And more ofte n than not, they weren't even funny.

"Taped actually I was taped to the chair. And I have no doubt you'd have made a deal. But I'm not you, am I?"

Ken backed away from the table for a moment, shoving his hands in hi s pockets and trying to calculate a new angle. She sipped her Coke an d stared directly at him.

The truth was, she deserved at least part of the anger some of he r colleagues directed at her. When she'd gotten the job, the combinatio n of her own self-doubt and all the affirmative action talk had cause d her to react in a way typical for her but not exactly productive. Sh e should have been in the bars after hours drinking beers with the guys , but instead she'd let that spark of insecurity focus her solely o n making sure she did everything just a little better than everyone else.

She'd told herself that she was doing it to gain her team's respect , but that wasn't really the whole truth.

Worse, she'd refused to allow herself to be politicized and walked awa y from the feminist contingent who were her only supporters. They'd quickly labeled her as a traitor and now probably wanted to see he r fail as much as anyone. The lesson to be learned? The end result o f mixing slightly tarnished intentions with defensiveness and ego coul d be kind of explosive.

"You said he was expecting you," Ken said, spitting the words out wit h disgust that she figured he really felt. "Are you suggesting he has a source in the police department?"

Again, the implication was clear: that she was trying to divert blam e from herself. To make excuses.

"I said he was waiting for someone. Not us. I honestly don't believ e that he knew we were cops until he saw it on TV. If he had known, I'd be dead now."

"The mysterious Strand .. ."

She shrugged. "That's who he wanted information on."

"We've run the name through every database in the country and come u p with nothing. No one in the drug trade, no one involved in terrorism , no one he was involved with in the military .. ."

"Maybe it's someone the DEA doesn't know about. Maybe it's an alias.

Where did you get the tip? Are you talking to your informant?"

Ken just frowned and looked away.

"I'm serious," she said, leaning across the desk and trying to get hi m to look at her. "When you start putting all this together, it gets a hell of a lot more complicated than some paranoid ex-soldier blowing a "

"Oh, so you've "

"I hate being interrupted, Ken!"

He actually stopped talking, more out of surprise than anything else.

"First, I don't think he had anything to do with killing the Ramire z brothers."

"So we're going to just take his word for that?" Ken managed to ge t in.

"After wiping out a bunch of cops, why would he bother to lie abou t killing a couple of drug dealers?" She paused for a moment to take a breath. "Second, I believe that al Fayed was expecting someone name d Strand to attack him. If he knew that we were cops from the beginning , why let me go?"

"Because you're going to help him keep ahead of our investigation?"

She leaned back in her chair. "Come on, Ken .. . Are we going to tal k seriously or not? Where did we get our information on this guy? Som e kind of tip, right? From who?"

He ignored the question as he had every other time she'd posed it.

Clearly it was something that either he didn't know or didn't want t o tell her.

"That's where I'd be looking, if I was you," she continued. "What i f this informant knew al Fayed was ready for him and decided to call u s and let us do his dirty work for him?"

"Shut the hell up!" Captain Pickering shouted, finally un stickin g himself from the wall. "Just shut your mouth. You completely fuck u p this operation and get your entire team killed and now what? It's m y fault? Based on a bunch of half-assed theories, you've got the forc e being manipulated into doing the cartel's wet work? All I asked you t o do was go in and arrest this son of a bitch so we could talk to him.

But you couldn't handle it. You can sit there and try to deflect th e blame all you want but it just looks pathetic."

"Pathetic?" she shouted back. "Who told you that it wasn't exactly a stroke of genius to go in there with guns blazing and no intelligence?

Who told you that we should just pick him up on a traffic violation?

And who told you that it seemed a little strange that some big sho t cartel enforcer was living in a falling-down house building furniture?

Maybe you ought to focus a little less on making sure none of thi s sticks to you and a little more on trying to find this guy! Becaus e I'll tell you that standing around here waiting for me to remember tha t he gave me his address and phone number isn't going to get u s anywhere."

Pickering just stood there for a moment and then motioned for Ken t o follow him outside. When the door closed, Karen slammed a fist down o n the table and jumped up from her chair. She walked over to the window , curling her fingers through the chicken wire and leaning her forehea d on the sill.

Stupid. Why the hell couldn't she learn to keep her goddamn mout h shut? What was it al Fayed had said to her? That her temper would ge t her in trouble someday? That psycho was just full of astut e observations.

Nothing good was going to come of any of this. Her men were dead an d there was nothing that could be done about that. The best Pickerin g could hope for was to assign blame and exact revenge. On the firs t count, they had a pretty strong hand. Pickering would stay away fro m the question of who had provided the tip and why, concentrating instea d on the indisputable fact that al Fayed had killed a bunch of cops.

Then he'd imply that he'd been under political pressure to put her i n charge of the SWAT team and that she had always been a disaster waitin g to happen. The fact that she'd done everything by the book would b e carefully obscured. No one wanted to hear it anyway. They just wante d someone to blame.

Hell, maybe they were right. The book notwithstanding, it had been he r plan, her team. She could have done more than make a few weak protest s and then allow herself to be bullied into charging in like an idiot.

She could have demanded more intelligence or insisted on waiting unti l he was isolated and unarmed. But she hadn't.

Even worse was the manhunt that was gearing up. There was little doub t that given enough time, they would turn up al Fayed the police had a way of raising the level of their game when it came to dealing wit h people who killed their own. And that meant another showdown. Th e problem was that she wasn't sure if they'd do any better in roun d Chapter Two.

Chapter Fourteen.

The dress shirt Matt Egan was carefully folding into his suitcase wa s purely for the benefit of his wife in case she walked in. The onl y realistic use for it he could think of was making his body presentabl e at the funeral home. Now that was cheerful, wasn't it?

He carried the half-full suitcase into the bathroom and swept hi s things into it, turning away before he could catch his reflection i n the mirror. No point in reminding himself of his slightly shaggy hai r or the wire-rimmed glasses or the inevitable re proportioning of hi s thirty-eight-year-old body into something a little narrower at th e shoulder and wider at the waist. Not that he was what most peopl e would call soft. He ran five miles at a reasonable clip three days a week and spent an hour in the weight room on the other four days.

Sometimes, though, it seemed like a losing battle. He latched the to p of his suitcase and walked down the hall toward his den, remindin g himself that his slow physical decline wasn't all that relevant. Seve n years ago, Fade had singlehandedly taken out him and his entire team i n a training exercise in the North Carolina back country.

Elise was nowhere to be seen as he padded through the kitchen; probabl y entangled in the ever-lengthening process of putting Kali to bed. He stopped in the hallway, considering going to help, but for some reaso n he suddenly felt like an outsider like he didn't belong with the m anymore. It was more than just the lies, it was the fact that h e shouldn't have allowed himself to be put in this situation. It wasn't his right anymore.

Egan closed the door behind him and sat at his desk, dropping th e suitcase on top. It took almost a minute of flipping through hi s overstuffed key ring in the semidarkness to find the one that fit t o his lower right drawer. If Elise had ever noticed the drawer bein g locked and she almost certainly had she'd never mentioned it. I t seemed likely that she didn't want to know what was inside.

The pistol that he extracted seemed kind of pathetic compared to th e arsenal he imagined Fade had amassed. It was more a memento than a weapon, really. In fact, it was the only reminder of his militar y career that hadn't made its way to the attic. His den had evolved int o more of a shrine to his wife's accomplishments than his own: frame d CDs, concert posters, magazine articles, reviews. She'd protested, o f course, but the truth was he didn't really want to dwell on his past.

While it was true that the army had done a lot for him, he couldn't exactly say he had fond memories of it.

The Egans could only be described as coming from solid poor white tras h stock. The family tradition was to barely graduate from high school , enlist in the Marines, spend a few years getting harassed by th e military police, then get a job as a mechanic or factory worker.

Bowling every Wednesday night, a drunken brawl every other Saturday.

Once a month, slap the wife around.

And for a long time he managed to convince himself that he would follo w that same path. He'd thrown classes on purpose, only to sneak off an d bury himself in books when his father thought he was practicing sports.

Despite his best effort to the contrary, he'd actually graduated hig h school with a B average. Of course, no one not even he himself sa w that achievement as anything other than a mildly amusing fluke and i t had certainly never occurred to him that there were directions in lif e that had never been taken by his relatives before him.

Despite his admitted lack of imagination, he'd shown a small glimmer o f independent thought when, much to the disappointment of his father , he'd joined the Army instead of the Marines after graduation. He'd really wanted to go for the even more cushy Air Force, but had figure d the ensuing family scandal would be too much to bear.

After showing up for basic training, it had taken only about thirt y seconds for him to begin to loathe the restrictions and relentles s structure of military life. And after a few months of it, he'd bee n almost ready to shoot himself. Then, one day, he'd been drowning hi s sorrows at a local bar and gotten to talking to a Green Beret wh o painted a fairly attractive picture of the Special Forces intelligenc e gathering, the encouragement of intellectual pursuits, and most of all , the fact that they were left alone as much as an enlisted man coul d hope.

Egan made it through the rigorous training program by sheer force o f will. After that, it had turned out to be a pretty good gig all aroun d his success had closed the rift between him and his father to th e degree it could be closed, and the learning opportunities wer e incredible. While he was never going to be the strongest or fastest o n the team, he'd shown a real aptitude for foreign cultures, languages , and analysis.

Everything was going along just fine when the Army suddenly decided t o ask him to actually do something for his paycheck. They'd sent him t o Jordan and he'd been forced to kill a man. Six, actually. And tha t marked the end of his love affair with the Special Forces. As soon a s he landed back in the States, he'd typed up a resignation letter. Hi s commanding officer promptly tore it up and told him to come back in tw o days. When he'd returned, exactly forty-eight hours later, there was a guy from West Point waiting for him. Suddenly, he was in college.

Not having much of a work ethic when it came to things he wasn't interested in, he hadn't much cared for the university atmosphere. He'd quickly developed a bad habit of looking at issues from too many angle s and then arguing vehemently with his professors something that hadn't exactly endeared him to the faculty. The whole idea of having someon e stand at the head of a class and tell him what to think just never sa t well with him.

The bottom line was that he had a problem with authority figures an d that wasn't a great trait in a soldier. So he was floored whe n Military Intelligence had come sniffing around at the recommendation o f a number of his instructors.

Suddenly, he was a spook. And a pretty good one. Still, though, hi s personal life had remained kind of a mess. His wife probably woul d have called it an identity crisis. A little touchy-feely, but more o r less accurate.

There had been so much cultural baggage to unload before he could se e the possibilities that his West Point friends took for granted.

It had all come together when he'd finally gone over to the mor e liberal CIA and then met Elise. It wasn't until then that he figure d out that he was being driven slowly crazy by a life of trying to stuf f his square peg into other people's round hole.

And now here he was, a thirty-eight-year-old man finally at peace wit h himself. He had everything he'd grown up not even knowing that h e wanted. And now he was going to lose it all.

Chapter Fifteen.

The car was a little beat up and pulled hard to the left, but in s o many other ways it was perfect. How far wrong could you go with a sky-blue '65 Cadillac Deville convertible? It was spacious, had snapp y acceleration, and offered almost infinite opportunities to let the win d blow through his newly sheared hair. Fade pulled the beer from a drin k holder hanging on the door and checked the speedometer to make sure h e was hovering just below the speed limit as he aimed the car north o n 1-95.

For a reason that he couldn't seem to put his finger on, he was feelin g a bit down. The sky was cloudless, the trunk of his sweet new ride wa s full of cash, guns, and liquor, and his problems were so insurmountabl e that there was no point in even worrying about them. So what was th e rub? A little more consideration and the answer came to him: Mat t Egan.

Even after everything that had happened, there was no way he coul d completely turn his back on their history. Egan had saved his ass o n more than one occasion not by doing anything as showy as dragging hi s injured body through a minefield, but his efforts were just as real.

Matt always put the safety of his men at the top of the list and hi s intelligence almost never failed to be impeccable. When things go t hairy, there was nothing like hearing his voice come over the radio.

You knew if you did exactly what he said, you were going to make it.

And then there was Mary Jane.

Fade had been working with Egan for about a year when word got aroun d that his father was dying. The other rumor was that he wasn't going t o see him because of some bad blood. By then, Fade and he had gotte n pretty close and it seemed obvious that this was going to be a decisio n that his friend would regret. So, one morning Fade had stacked th e back seat of his piece of shit Corvette with four cases of beer, drive n to Matt Egan's house, and under serious protest taken him t o Kentucky.

It had been a bizarre trip for a twenty-five-year-old Arab-American ki d from Brooklyn. To him, the Egan family seemed like a bunch o f toothless, possum gumming freakazoids from the planet Hillbilly. On e notable exception was Mart's sister Mary Jane, who he was puttin g through nursing school. Fade and she hit it off and made a pact t o stay in touch. By the time she graduated a year later, they wer e meeting halfway between their homes every other weekend.

Not knowing how Matt would react, they kept it quiet, but it wa s inevitable that he'd eventually find out. When he did, he was actuall y happy about it and couldn't understand why they hadn't told him. I t had occurred to Fade at the time that you could be fairly certain a gu y wasn't just pretending to be your friend when he found out you wer e sleeping with his sister and he seemed psyched about it.

Who knows what would have happened if he hadn't gotten shot and fucke d over? Matt would probably be his brother-in-law and his kids would b e getting guitar lessons from Elise Egan.

But it hadn't worked out that way. When he'd returned, MJ tried t o call him and see him a thousand times and a thousand times he'd turne d away. Eventually the phone just stopped ringing.

Fade drained the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle in the bac k seat, trying to shake off the memory. Deep thinking about the Ega n family was in no way part of his brilliant three-step plan to chee r himself up. With the car purchased, it was time to move on to phas e two. He dialed a number written on the back of his hand into his fanc y new phone and pressed it hard to his ear, trying to block out the rus h of the wind.

"Homeland Security, how can I direct your call?"

"Hillel Strand's office, please," he shouted.

There was a brief pause and then a woman's voice. "Yes, can I hel p you?"

"Put Hillel on, please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Salam al Fayed."

Obviously the woman either knew what was going on or was following th e news, because there was an uncomfortably long pause before she spok e again. "Could you hold for a moment?"

He fished another beer off the floorboard.

"Mr. al Fayed? Are you all right?"

"I'm great, Hillel. Thanks for asking. How about you?"

"Where are you? Can you get to us?"

"Oh, I'm counting on it. Sending the police to my house wasn't ver y sporting."

"I didn't know anything about that. How would I?"

"No one seems to want to take the rap for this. But that's what suck s about being in charge, isn't it, Hillel? The buck has to sto p somewhere."

"Look, Mr. al Fayed .. . I'm sorry about all this I'm trying to fin d out exactly what happened, but I don't know anything yet. It's tru e that I wanted you to work for us. You're the best and we want th e best, but we heard you loud and clear. I certainly understand th e genesis of your feelings about the government and frankly I don't blam e you. It was the government's responsibility to stand behind you and i t didn't. Maybe we can make up for that now."

He had to admit that Strand was a good talker. Very soothing. Ver y earnest. Quite a change from the man he'd met in his front yard.

"And how would you do that?"

"We have fairly substantial resources and a certain amount of freedo m to make decisions. Not enough to get you off the hook for this n o one's got that kind of juice. What we can do, though, is get yo u another identity and get you out of the country. We might also be abl e to convince the police that you're dead. I can't guarantee that las t thing, though."

"You're quite the little politician aren't you, Hillel? Big future.

But I'm guessing that a meeting between you and me could only end wit h a bullet in my back, and I've already got one of those. No. No politics, no legal maneuvering, no mind fucking. Just you and me."

"Mr. al Fayed " Strand said, the pitch of his voice going up a bit.

"Remember the game you were talking about at my house, Hillel? Welcom e to it."

Fade pressed the phone's off button and tossed it into the passenge r seat. Getting to Strand was going to be a fairly tall order. Unlik e Matt, the son of a bitch would probably crawl under his desk behind a billion dollar's worth of security until he could be certain Fade wa s dead. Even if he failed, though, he'd give that bastard a taste o f what it was like to spend every minute waiting helplessly for somethin g to end your life..

Chapter Sixteen.

"Matt! Is your phone working? I was starting to think you'd droppe d off the face of the earth."

As the office receptionist, Kelly Braith wouldn't know anything abou t what was going on but undoubtedly had been hounded all day by a n increasingly anxious Hillel Strand. Egan had quietly unplugged hi s home phones the afternoon before and hadn't plugged them back in agai n until nine a . M. when he left the house that morning.

Based on the messages on his cell phone, Strand had been fairl y agitated by his disappearance yesterday, but hadn't become reall y panicked until a few hours ago. It was impossible to be certain wha t had caused the sudden escalation, but it wasn't hard to guess.

Egan glanced at his watch. One P. M. He'd spent the morning relocatin g to a hotel just outside of D. C. and renting a car, the windows of whic h he'd immediately had tinted. Despite confirming that it was impossibl e to see through them in the afternoon sun, his heart rate had rise n about ten beats per minute when he'd pulled into the building's underground parking. If he could help it, this would be the last tim e he'd get within ten miles of Homeland Security until either he or Fad e put an end to this. No point in making things too easy for his ol d friend.

"Sorry, Kel. There was some stuff I had to do this morning. Hope i t didn't cause you too much hassle."

By way of answer, she rolled her eyes and flicked them in the genera l direction of Strand's office.

He forced a knowing smile on his face and kept walking.

"Matt!"

He didn't turn around, instead stepping through the door to his offic e and starting to rifle through a file cabinet.

"Matt!" Strand repeated, coming inside and slamming the door behin d him. "Why the hell aren't you returning my calls?"

Egan bent down and emptied a box of printer paper to use to pack hi s things in, but didn't answer.

"Al Fayed called me," Strand said. "He threatened me."

"Uh huh," Egan answered, trying to determine if his coffee mug wa s clean before tossing it in the box.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, Hillel. I heard you."

Strand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, lookin g carefully into his face. "He's threatened you, too, hasn't he?"

Egan just frowned and went back to digging through his file cabine t while Strand sat down on the edge of the desk, suddenly seeming a bi t more relaxed. Misery loved company.

"Then why the hell aren't you calling me back? We need to deal wit h this. We need to talk."

"About what?" Egan replied, mentally adding, You stupid prick.

"About al Fayed and what we're going to do about him. Like it or not , Matt, we're in this together."

Egan finally slammed the file drawer shut and turned around. Stran d didn't look quite as crisp as he normally did, suggesting he'd spen t the night at the office. Lucky. There was a fair chance that Fade ha d found his house by now.

"Actually, Hillel, you're just another problem to me buzzing aroun d trying to figure out a way to make me the scapegoat for your fuck-up.

It really wouldn't be accurate for me to say that I don't care one wa y or another if Fade kills you because at this point it'd work better fo r me if he does. I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you r survival isn't really in my best interest."

Strand opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The concept of deat h was so far outside the world he lived in that there was some questio n as to whether he could even process the possibility. Did he reall y understand that the downside to this situation was a little steepe r than failing to secure some clever political alliance or getting a bum p in his pay grade? It was hard to say.

"I ... I spoke out of turn when we talked last," he said. "I was upse t and I wasn't thinking. Look, what I'm trying to say is that I wa s wrong .. ."

Egan stared silently at him for a few moments, trying to decide what t o do. Clearly, this was a completely opportunistic change of hear t Strand was out of his depth and starting to face the fact that h e needed help. Having said that, Egan knew what he had to do would b e easier with access to Homeland Security resources.

"Who are the Ramirez brothers?"

Strand's impenetrable poker face failed him and the surprise on it wa s unmistakable. There had been nothing in the press about the Ramirezes.

Not yet anyway.

"I have my sources too, Hillel."

Strand glanced back at the door to make sure it was closed and then sa t quietly for a few seconds, probably trying to calculate just how muc h Egan knew and how much he had to admit to.

"The Ramirez brothers were a convenience," he said finally. "It wa s going to be hard to get the police motivated with stories about a l Fayed killing drug dealers in Colombia years ago .. ."

"So you manufactured something."

Strand nodded hesitantly. "I had Lauren collect information on bot h the Ramirezes and al Fayed that no crank would have access to and the n called in a very convincing anonymous tip."

And there it was. Strand had, for his own gain, given the police a false tip that had left a number of cops in the morgue. If hi s involvement was discovered, he'd have to be able to provide an airtigh t connection between Fade and the Ramirezes in the face of what woul d undoubtedly be a major FBI investigation. Otherwise th e pseudo-patriotic excuses he'd made yesterday wouldn't mean shit.

"I made a bad call," Strand continued calmly. "I expected the polic e to just go in there and arrest al Fayed and then we'd come to hi s rescue with information exonerating him .. ."

"If he agreed to work for us," Egan added.

"I have a lot of responsibility here, Matt. We both do. We're a bi g piece of the security of this country going forward and you know a s well as I do that al Fayed is a unique resource. I had no choice bu t to pull out all the stops to try to get him. It should have been a win-win for everybody involved. It never occurred to me that somethin g like this could happen ..."

That was probably true, but kind of irrelevant at this point.

"As I see it, Matt, we both have our backs against the wall here. I s ent a bunch of cops to Fade's door under false pretenses and he kille d them. But don't forget that you covered up his activities in Colombia.

There's no way people are going to buy that you weren't involved i n this."

"And if it comes to that, I imagine that I can count on you to d o everything in your power to heap the blame on me."

"Let's not turn this into a war we'll both lose, Matt. You know a s well as I do that I won't have to say a word. You know how th e government works. Guilt by association." Strand paused for a moment.

"The bottom line is that we need to get together on this and make it g o away. That's what's good for everybody."

"Everybody," Egan repeated quietly and then turned to look out a smal l window that opened onto D. C. He wondered if Fade would agree with tha t lying in a grave somewhere remembered by history as nothing more than a psychotic cop killer and drug dealer.

What was the right thing to do?

He could go to the director and spill his guts. How would he react?

Not well. General Crenshaw was a surprisingly moderate man and a ver y nervous student of history. For every hour he spent talking abou t security, he spent probably a half an hour talking about th e Constitution. To the degree he could be, he was an opponent of th e powers the government was quietly consolidating. The suspending o f people's right to due process, the government's ability to take awa y people's right to fly with no reason, the holding of terrorist suspect s in indefinite limbo he saw it all as a dangerous path that historicall y had never led to anything but disaster. The slightest indication tha t men under his command were abusing the authority he wasn't completel y convinced they should have would be dealt with in the harshest wa y possible. And that would almost certainly leave Egan in prison unti l his daughter was retired.

And what about Fade? The government couldn't afford to have a pissed-off Salam al Fayed running around the country, or even worse , the court system. They would assemble a team to track down an d exterminate him or throw him in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of hi s life. The cost there wouldn't just be to Fade, either. If there wa s one thing that was absolutely certain, Salam al Fayed wasn't going t o go quietly. More people would die.

"We have an enormous advantage here, Matt. You know al Fayed bette r than anyone, I can get us real-time access to reports on the polic e investigation, we have background files on him that aren't going to b e available to anyone else, and we have a hell of a team right here i n this office ..."

"You're suggesting we handle this ourselves," Egan said.

"I don't see how bringing in anyone else would improve our capacity t o find him."

Egan didn't answer for a long time, though he knew there was only on e path available to him. The more he thought about it, the more certai n he became that if this went public, he'd end up in prison and Fad e would end up dead but only after taking more good men with him.

"I run the operation," Egan said finally. "I'm in charge."

Strand looked down at the floor and folded his hands on his lap. "I k now you were friends that you feel partially responsible for what's happened to him. But the fact is, there is no pleasant way out o f this."

What Strand was getting at was clear but he obviously wanted it sai d out loud so that he could be certain that they were both on the sam e page. He needed Fade killed and he expected Egan to do the honors.

"He called me, too, Hillel. We were friends once but now I have a family to think about. He's too dangerous to play around with."

All the more convincing, because it was true. If he got th e opportunity, Egan knew that it would be insane not to take the shot.

And maybe he would. But until he was faced with that situation, it wa s impossible to say. To actually kill Fade. To pull the trigger. Ho w could it have come to this?

Of course, all this soul-searching, plotting, and negotiating wa s probably moot. It was hard not to dwell on the fact that no one ha d ever survived being targeted by Salam al Fayed. It didn't seem likel y that he and Strand would be the first.

Chapter Seventeen.

Fade eased the Cadillac through a set of large metal doors and the n followed the direction of a Latino with heavy, tattooed arms to th e center of the cavernous shop. Part three of his plan to cheer himsel f up was now in motion.

"What a piece of shit."

Fade climbed over the driver's side door, which he'd discovered stuc k pretty badly, and dropped onto the black-and-white-checked floor.

Turning in a slow circle, he took in the state-of-the-art machinery , signed photos of famous athletes, and inevitable posters of half-nake d women. The contrast between the spotless building and the grubby , dangerous-looking men crawling all over his car was even more startlin g in person than on TV.

"I appreciate you taking me so fast, Isidro."

"Ain't no problem. We been trying to get you movie guys to wake up fo r years. You got all those famous actors driving around in cars that an y asshole can buy down the street. We did a hot rod for Tom Hanks and h e told me some bullshit about product placement .. ."

"Tom Hanks has a hot rod?"

"The hot rod, man. The hot rod."

Fade had first seen Isidro on a Discovery Channel game show where a team of gifted mechanics could win a bunch of tools by modifying a ca r to the producer's liking. In five days, Isidro and his guys ha d transformed a Porsche into an amphibious landing craft that could d o forty knots on water and still cornered like a dream. In light o f that, what he had in mind for the Caddy should be a piece of cake.

"So James Bond's going to drive this old junk?" said a man standing o n the Caddy's trunk. "What's up with that?"

When Fade had called, he'd told Isidro that he was with MGM and that h e was working on the new Bond flick. It would go a long way t o explaining what he wanted done.

"That's the idea. They've decided to do kind of a period film. Tak e it back to the early seventies, when the Bond movies were still reall y cool. He's on a mission in the U. S. so he has to blend in. And wha t car's more American than a convertible Caddy?"

The man adjusted the red bandanna on his head and began bouncing up an d down on the back of the vehicle, obviously disappointed in th e condition of the suspension.

Fade looked back at Isidro. "I figured with all the work you guys wer e going to do, there was no point in buying something mint."

He shrugged and Fade followed him on a quick circuit of the car. "Qui t jumping on the fucking trunk, man. The thing's gonna fall apart."

Fade couldn't help feeling a little star struck as he stood next to th e man. While they looked like a bunch of gang bangers from east L. A ."

Isidro and his guys were probably the best in the world at what the y did. In fact, they were so precise, rumor had it that a few parts o n the space shuttle bore the Death Valley Hot Rod symbol.

Isidro went into motion again and Fade followed, this time to a n artfully airbrushed refrigerator full of nothing but beer.

"So what are we talking about, man?" Isidro said, popping the top of f a bottle and offering it to Fade.

"I'm glad you asked. Two machine guns in front, one over eac h headlight. One machine gun in the back, firing out of the center o f the trunk. I'd like the back seat to flip up and expose a rifle and a couple other things set into foam. The armrest between the front seat s should have a pistol, also custom cut into foam. A police scanner .. .

Oh, and an ejector seat. We'll definitely need one of those."

"The seat assembly's one piece," the man on the trunk said.

"We could cut 'em," someone else offered. "But you're going to los e your back to front adjustment."

"No problem," Fade said.

"What do you think?" Isidro said to the only Caucasian in the room. He had an enormous white ass, the crack of which was almost completely o n display as he got on all fours and shoved his head beneath the seat.

"Does it actually have to work?"

Fade shrugged. "You mean does it really have to be able to throw a gu y out of the car? Nah. Just make it cool, you know?"

"Springs aren't going to cut it. It'd be too hard to operate th e latching system .. ."

"It'd be hard to reset, too," Isidro added, then turned back to Fade.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing major. I need a kick-ass motor and suspension good enough s o we can use it in the chase scenes. And a really elegant paint jot) I'm thinking black. And, of course, a really sweet sound system. Pierc e Bros-nan's gonna end up spending a lot of time sitting around in it an d he's a classical music fan, you know?"

Isidro nodded slowly and chewed his bottom lip for a few seconds. "No t gonna be cheap."

"I know."

"When do you need it?"

"I hate to do this to you, but I need it fast. Like, middle of nex t week."

That got a chorus of laughter and Spanish expletives loud enough t o echo off the high walls.

"I know, I know," Fade said, spreading his hands wide in a gesture o f helplessness. "I just got hit with this. Pierce is coming to th e States and they want to unveil the project at a big thing in L. A . He's going to drive up in it and park it on the lawn it'll be th e centerpiece of the party. Also we're talking about a TV show on th e making of the movie that you guys would be included in. I know it's a pain in the ass, but it could be some great publicity for you."

Isidro took a long pull on his beer bottle and circled the car one las t time. "Shit, the body will have to go out to paint and chrome, lik e today. Did I mention this isn't gonna be cheap?"

Fade grinned and took the knapsack off his shoulder, tossing it to th e man. "There's fifty thousand in cash to get you started."

This time, the reaction wasn't quite as loud, but it was a hell of a lot more positive.

"Guns," Isidro said. "What are we talking about there?"

Fade grinned and opened the trunk.

"Maldidon! Are those real?"

"Actually, they are. It's a lot cheaper to just get permitted for th e real thing and shoot blanks than to try to build something. Will the y work?"

Isidro grabbed one of the machine guns, striking a pose with it an d bobbing his head approvingly. "Bad ass, man."

"So they're okay?"

He sighted along it, aiming at a candy apple red Harley parked on th e other side of the building. "Probably have to chop 'em up to make 'e m fit."

"Do what you got to do. You've got carte blanche."

Isidro walked back around to the front of the car and tossed the gu n onto the hood, apparently not at all concerned by the large dent i t left. "You're my kind of client, man."

Chapter Eighteen.

Matt Egan had positioned himself against the back wall of th e conference room, reluctant for some reason to sit at the table Stran d was now standing in front of.

The Office of Strategic Planning and Acquisition consisted of onl y eight core employees the idea being that the smaller it was, the easie r it would be to keep quiet. Of those eight, only four knew what ha d happened with Fade: Strand, himself, and their respective assistant s William Fraiser and Lauren McCall. Both were young, ambitious, wel l educated, and utterly inexperienced in the workings of the real world.

In fact, to his knowledge, he was the only person in Homelan d Security's new clandestine operational wing who had ever fired a gun o r visited the Middle East. No, that wasn't entirely true. Their lawyer , hired to interpret the Constitution and the Patriot Act's occasiona l circumvention of it, had once gone on a church trip to Jerusalem.

Fraiser, who Egan called Billy just to annoy him, had only been out o f grad school for five years and had been assigned to Egan with no inpu t at all from him. Of course, he had all the credentials: a former Iv y League athlete with great grades, a clean background, and a solid eas t coast pedigree. Despite all that or maybe because of it Egan had neve r been able to warm up to him. Fraiser was a former president of hi s class and just came off as a little too slick and political for Egan's taste. Honestly, though, the bias was based more on impression tha n action Billy hadn't done anything that wasn't damn near perfect sinc e he'd started. Clearly a young man with the tools to carve out a serious future for himself.

Lauren, on the other hand, was a perfect match for Strand: a beautifu l blonde who didn't seem interested in her job beyond how she could us e it as a springboard to greater things, but who was so close to bein g brilliant that it didn't matter. Not that Strand had probably give n her abilities all that much thought when he'd hired her. It seeme d more likely that he'd based his decision more on her appearanc e (Scandinavian ice princess) and the way she carried hersel f (aristocratic dominatrix) than her abilities. It wasn't sexual, thoug h nothing so pure as that. He just thought she was a classy ornament fo r his office.

He knew the other two men in the room only from their files. They'd been the two front-runners for populating OSPA's operational arm.

"I'd like to introduce Doug Banes and Steve Despain," Strand said whe n everyone was settled. "They've both come over from Marine Specia l Forces and are the first operatives to be recruited by us."

Egan reluctantly joined the brief interlude of hand shaking and smal l talk, but then immediately returned to his wall. Banes and Despai n were both good men but for some reason they made him uncomfortable.

Probably something to do with the fact that Strand hadn't said a wor d about their hiring and that they had undoubtedly been told that the y answered only to him. In the end, they would almost certainly turn ou t to be just another thing to worry about.

"Al Fayed contacted me yesterday," Strand said, plummeting the roo m into complete silence. Interestingly, Billy and Lauren looked mor e nervous than anyone. They were more or less aware of what had happene d and undoubtedly had been watching OSPA's clandestine attempt t o persuade Fade to join up get splashed all over the TV. They wer e probably thinking that it was often the people at their level who ende d up doing jail time while the higher-ups just rode the old-boy networ k into a lucrative private industry job.

"He's lost it," Strand continued. "He was ranting. I tried to cal m him down, to bring him in, but there was no way .. ." He pause d dramatically.

"I don't want anyone to panic, but I don't think I have the right t o keep this from you. He's threatened us. All of us. He says h e intends to kill me and my entire team."

Egan frowned as Billy and Lauren's eyes turned completely round. Funn y how Fade hadn't mentioned any grudge against the team to him. Come t o think of it, he hadn't done a lot of ranting, either. But Stran d needed everyone motivated and he probably figured there was nothin g that lit a fire under people like a glimpse of their own violen t deaths. In Egan's experience, though, that strategy wasn't always a s effective as one would expect. Motivated and panicked were two ver y different things. This kind of situation always had the potential t o degenerate into anarchic game of every-man-for-himself.

"Obviously, we need to find him and neutralize the situation as quickl y and quietly as possible."

There was a short silence and then Billy cleared his throat. For a moment, Egan thought he was going to ask what "neutralize th e situation" meant, but he didn't.

"Matt's going to take the lead in this," Strand continued. "While it's true that he doesn't have the pure investigative experience of a twenty-year FBI veteran, I believe he's the most qualified man for th e job. He has an intimate knowledge of al Fayed's history, hi s tendencies, and his training. And he has you the best team in th e business. I don't think there's any question that if we stay focused , we've got a winning hand."

Strand's meeting had gone on for another hour, finally descending int o a jittery, and ultimately pointless, flood of questions for which h e had no answers.

The knock at his door was timid enough that Egan decided to ignore i t and hope whoever it was would go away. It was already over two hour s past the absolute outside time he'd targeted for being the hell out o f there. It was not his plan to get shot driving out of the most obviou s place he could possibly be. If he was going to lose this thing, he'd like to do it with a little more dignity than that.

The knocking started again just as he was closing the flaps of the bo x on his desk. This time a bit more assertive.

"What?"

The door opened slowly, revealing Billy and Lauren. They just stoo d there on the threshold, making no move to enter.

"What?" Egan repeated as he used his fingernail to try to lift th e edge of a roll of packing tape.

"Can we talk to you a second?" Billy looked like he'd had better days , but the change in Lauren was downright startling. She actually had a few hairs out of place and the collar of her blouse was crooked. I t didn't sound like much, but in a woman who arranged her sushi by siz e before eating it, those subtle signals were nearly the equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

"Talk fast," Egan said.

They stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind them and ignorin g his request by just standing there silently.

"For God's sake, what?" Egan said, his frustration increasing as h e wrestled with the tape roll.

Lauren took an uncharacteristically hesitant step forward. "We'r e wondering what we should do, Matt. I mean, I live alone in a groun d floor apartment. How am I supposed to protect myself? Should I b e buying a gun?"

Egan let out a long breath and tossed the tape on his desk. "Al l right. I want you both to listen to me very carefully. Fade want s Hillel and he wants me, though I'm not sure in what order. He has n o interest in you he's not going to run the risk of exposing himself an d missing his chance at me and Hillel. Don't buy guns, don't buy pi t bulls, and don't buy security systems. None of them would do a thin g to deter Fade if he was interested. But he's not, okay? Hell, h e would have no way of even knowing who you are. He has absolutely n o investigative background and from what I remember, he can barely eve n turn on a computer."

"If he's not interested in us, then why did he threaten us?" Laure n said. Billy seemed content to let her lead.

The short answer, of course, was that he hadn't. But Egan wasn't prepared to call his boss a liar. Not yet anyway.

"He wants to rattle you, Lauren. He doesn't want you thinkin g straight."

"But if we do think straight and we start getting too close, what's t o keep him from coming after us to slow us down?"

It was a good question, but impossible to answer in a way that woul d sound even remotely convincing. What would stop him is that, despit e current evidence to the contrary, he wasn't a murderer. He didn't purposely kill women, children, innocent bystanders, or office staff.

How could Egan sum up in two minutes a person that he'd spent year s with?

"Look, you can either listen to what I'm telling you or not," Ega n said, hefting the box and starting toward the door. "Do whatever make s you sleep better at night."

Billy stepped out of the way, but Lauren didn't.

"That's it, Matt? Our lives are on the line and that's all you have t o say? I'm sorry. Are we delaying your escape?"

"Lauren " Billy cautioned.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" Egan said, cutting him off. "Yo u want me to tell you that if you put a pistol under your pillow you'l l be safe? Maybe you should go over to intensive care and ask that SWAT g uy if he thinks that'll work out for you. Now if you'll get out of m y way, I'm going to go out there and try to find him and when I do , I'l l ~B m ention to him that he's stressing you out right before he kills me." i f c Egan swung the box, catching her in the shoulder hard enough to shov e her out of the doorway, and started for the elevators.

Chapter Nineteen.

"My husband never thought she was ready. She was just promoted becaus e of feminist politics, you know. And now .. ." The woman's voic e faltered and she dabbed at her eyes without disturbing the meticulousl y applied mascara. "And now he's dead."

Her name was Brandy Slater, though rumor had it she was considerin g changing the spelling to end with an i. She was actually quite a beautiful woman in a porn star kind of way and the camera clearly love d her as much as she loved it. Karen Manning reached for the televisio n remote, put her thumb against the off button, but couldn't quite brin g herself to press it.

"You shouldn't be able to play politics with things like this," Brand y continued earnestly. "People's lives are at stake."

Her husband, Hal, had been one of the men killed by al Fayed and Brand y seemed to have found solace in the act of offering her expert criticis m of Karen on every station in the western hemisphere. Ironically, Ha l had been a pretty good guy. While he understandably hadn't gone out o n any social or political limbs to defend his team leader, he'd alway s been pretty fair. And even more ironically, Karen suspected that Hal's death wasn't what had poisoned Brandy against her. They'd met five o r six times at parties and the bottom line was that she was one of thos e women who saw Karen's ilk as endangering the pampered life women wit h her physical attributes so deserved to lead. Every effort Karen ha d made to create some kind of connection with Brandy had been met wit h nothing but anger and paranoia. What was she worried about? Ther e would always be a place in this world for big-haired bimbos.

"None of the guys thought she was qualified they were always talkin g about how she could get them killed .. ."

Karen grimaced and wondered if ol' Brandy would have anticipate d radio-controlled bombs in the goddamn trees. At the pre-op briefing , she didn't remember Hal bringing up that particular possibility. Or anyone else, for that matter.

She fell over sideways on the sofa, still staring at the screen an d reminding herself that it hadn't been Brandy or Hal's job to anticipat e anything. It had been hers.

The camera moved off Brandy and the interviewer started into a no w familiar monologue about possible peculiarities in her promotion an d errors of judgment, but carefully avoided giving examples.

Of course, there was no mention that she was the fastest member of th e team able to fly by the runner-up without even breaking a sweat. An d there would be no comment on the fact that she was the best educated a 3.4 undergrad average and some postgraduate work in criminology. Poun d for pound, she was also the strongest physically. Shooting had bee n her biggest weakness but she'd hired a coach and devoted months to it , ending up third best on the team. It wasn't like any of thes e qualities were subjective they had all been tested, recorded, an d apparently completely forgotten.

The screen flickered and then joined a press conference already in th e question and answer session.

"What is Officer Manning's status now?"

Captain Pickering frowned disapprovingly from behind his lectern. "Sh e is currently on administrative leave pending the completion of a n investigation into this incident."

"Do you have any leads as to al Fayed's whereabouts?" anothe r offscreen reporter asked.

"I can't comment directly, but I will tell you that I'm very happy wit h the progress of the investigation thus far." He pointed to a raise d hand at the bottom of the screen.

"Captain, based on Mr. al Fayed's military history, were any specia l precautions taken in trying to capture him?"

Karen sat up straight again and propped her feet against the coffe e table. "Why don't you tell them that I wanted to pick him up fo r speeding, you asshole?"

"That's something we're looking into. Next question?"

The same reporter yelled out a follow-up. "Captain, a single man, wit h rather old military experience, nearly killed an entire SWAT team. Ho w does this reflect on the training your men receive?"

Karen leaned into the television, interested to hear how Pickerin g would spin the answer to that. It would be hard to blame her, sinc e she didn't really have anything to do with setting training policy, bu t it was going to be even harder for him to admit that his beloved elit e warriors had suddenly been transformed into cannon fodder when face d with a competent opponent.

"These were top men!" he nearly shouted. "And they gave their live s in the performance of their duty. I will not have their bravery an d dedication questioned." A rather obvious non answer but emphati c enough not to get a challenge.

"Captain, a two-part question if I may," came a woman's voice. "Yo u mentioned that Karen Manning has been put on administrative leav e pending an investigation. Isn't this standard procedure in this typ e of situation? And second, based on your preliminary findings, is ther e any reason to believe that Officer Manning did not follow departmen t procedures in trying to apprehend the suspect?"

Karen tried to will the camera to shift to the reporter who had aske d the question. It paid to keep track of news people who weren't carrying torches and pitchforks.

"Our investigation into this can be measured in hours, ma'am. I hav e no idea at this point of what happened and what didn't and even if I d id know, I couldn't comment on it at this juncture. Next ques "

"And the first part of my question? The administrative leave?"

"You go, girl," Karen muttered.

"Yes .. ." Pickering was forced to concede. "Yes, it's standar d procedure."

Karen clicked off the television and flopped back onto the sofa tha t had been beneath her all day. This wasn't healthy. She should jus t leave the television off and go for a run. Or clean the dishes stacke d in the sink. Or.. .

Instead she turned the TV back on and began another slow scan of th e channels.

For what reason, she wasn't sure. It seemed almost certain now tha t her side of the story would never be told. Pickering had sent her u p against al Fayed despite her protests and it had turned into a disaster. Now he was going to say as little as possible and le t anonymous sources and widows do their work.

The phone rang and she craned her neck around to look at it. No fewe r than five reporters had already called that day, but it had been mad e very clear to her that she wasn't to speak to them while th e investigation was in process. And while she might be forced eventuall y to disobey that order, it wasn't time to go to war on this yet.

When the machine picked up, she heard John Wakefield's voice.

"Get off the sofa and answer the phone, Karen."

She reached for the handset. "Hello, John."

"So how are things?"

"Have you been watching the news?"

He didn't answer.

"Then you know how things are going."

"I've had a couple of calls from reporters, but I haven't taken them.

I'm not sure what to say."

Karen pulled a pillow over her head and stared into the darkness. No t him, too. If there was one thing she knew she couldn't take, it wa s Wake-field turning away from her.

"Karen? Are you there?"

"John, I ..." She heard her voice break and wiped away a tear b y pressing the pillow harder into her face. "I know I'm responsible. Bu t was it my fault? Tell me the truth."

"That's not what I meant, Karen. If I didn't believe in you on e hundred percent, I wouldn't have walked through the fire to bring yo u in on the Collector case. I am more than willing to call thes e reporters back when we hang up, but I wanted to talk to you first."

Karen let the pillow slide to the floor and reemerged into the light.

"Thanks, John. That means a lot."

"So? Do you want me involved?"

"No. Thanks, but not yet. I'm going to let it run its course for a little while and see what happens."

"You know that Pickering is going to do everything he can to save hi s ass."

"Yeah. I know. What's up with the Collector?"

"The letters came in. He's got his new girl."

Karen let out a long breath. "Stephany Narwal?"

"Yeah."

Narwal had been reported missing four days ago a beautiful young woma n who fit the victim profile perfectly.

"I wish you could have been there to help me talk to her family. I t ried to get you off leave and back in the office, but there's no way.

Policy. If I come up with anything, though, I'll figure out a way t o get you in on it. I miss having your eyes on this thing."

"Thanks. I appreciate that."

"Keep your chin up."

She hung up and for the first time that day didn't feel an urge t o stare at the news. Thank God for John Wakefield.

The phone rang again just as she was starting into the kitchen and sh e grabbed it and took it along with her.

"Hello?" she said, pulling open the door to the dishwasher an d beginning to dig silverware out of the sink.

"How are you holding up, honey?"

"Hi, Mom. I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine. Have you been watching TV? It's horrible. Whe n are you going to get in there and straighten things out?"

"I can't, Mom. We talked about this already."

"I mean, of course, this incident is unfortunate, but that's no reaso n for people to get on TV and say these things about you."

Her mother was nothing if not incredibly civil. Her most powerfu l admonishment was "just plain rude." Adolph Hitler? Just plain rude.

Anything less got "unfortunate." Your entire team gunned down, leavin g their children fatherless? Unfortunate. She and Dad were bot h sweethearts and had done what they could to understand and suppor t their black sheep daughter, though it hadn't always made her lif e easier.

When Karen's already reticent colleagues had discovered that he r parents were not only multimillionaires but stalwart members of th e country club set, things had gotten even more complicated. Ther e hadn't been much she could do but take the snide comments with rolle d eyes and smirks. It was a little hard to protest too much the hous e she was standing in was a graduation present and the car she'd insiste d on buying herself had one day been miraculously paid off.

More complicated still was the fact that her folks didn't think muc h more of cops than cops thought of them. Neither her mother nor fathe r had thought this "police thing" would last more than a year or two. By then they assumed she would have sowed her wild oats, quit, found a nice man, and settled down. Sometimes she thought she was in danger o f being crushed by the weight of all the cliches.

"The TV says you're on administrative leave. Does that mean you'r e off?"

"In a way, I guess," Karen said, trying to pry some old pasta off a pan.

"Why don't we go to our place in Hawaii? Your father has some time.

You and he should sit down and talk."

"Don't start, Mom."

"Start what? He's your father and he wants to help you. But you kno w he won't do anything without you asking."

Her father had started life delivering cigarettes from the back of a pickup truck and built that into a mega million-dollar shipping compan y using nothing but his incredible intelligence, borderline ruthlessness , and innate political savvy. During his rise, he'd made sure that hi s money and other resources were always available to the Republica n Party, and to date he'd never backed a loser. That had left hi m extremely powerful and well connected, something she'd soundl y criticized him for during that idealistic phase everyone went throug h in college.

"I really can't, Mom."

"You can't go to Hawaii or you can't ask for his help?"

"Neither. I don't think I'd feel right lying on a beach while my me n are being buried and I can't ask for Dad's help because I was a complete bitch to him about this kind of stuff during school."

"Oh, he didn't take any of that seriously, honey. If you won't do i t for yourself, do it for him. It's killing him to just sit on hi s hands. All he does when he's not at the office is storm around th e house and mumble about coming down on people like the wrath of God.

Actually, you should do it for me. He's driving me crazy."

"I'll think about it."

"That's all I can ask."

Her call waiting beeped and while she wasn't sure she wanted to talk t o the person on the other line, it was a good excuse. Guilt about he r parents' position in all this was starting to set in and if there wa s one thing she didn't need, it was more guilt. It seemed certain tha t they were taking a serious social thrashing. It was bad enough to hav e a daughter who was an unmarried cop (with all the lesbian innuendo tha t inevitably followed) but having a daughter who was an incompeten t unmarried cop had to really suck.

"Look, Mom, I gotta run. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. But think about Hawaii. You sound like you could use some tim e away."

"I will," Karen said and then switched lines. "Hello?"

"Hi, Karen. What's going on?"

It took her a moment to process the voice and when she did, sh e froze.

"Man, you're getting your ass kicked in the press. Have you eve r considered a good PR firm? And what about a makeover? With enoug h hair-spray, I'll bet you could have almost as good a bouffant as tha t bitch who's been dissing you."

"What do you want?"

The silence over the line lasted probably ten seconds. "I want to sa y I'm sorry about this .. ."

"About what, exactly? About killing my friends? Or about turning m e into the poster girl for government incompetence?"

It had never really occurred to her that Salam al Fayed would call he r at home and she was completely unprepared. How many times was this gu y going to catch her flat-footed?

"Both, I guess. But you're going to have a hard time convincing m e that all those guys were your friends. I thought being an Arab SEAL w as tough, but I'll bet being a woman SWAT team leader really blows. A t least I didn't have people constantly questioning my ability and m y right to be where I was they were too busy wondering if I was going t o suddenly start screaming "Allah AkbarP and shoot them in the back."

"You don't know a goddamn thing about me and you sure as hell don't know anything about my men. I have nothing in common with you, Mr. a l Fayed. Do you understand me? Nothing."

"Jesus. You're the worst interrogator I've ever met. Aren't yo u supposed to be nice to me, gain my trust, and get me to slip up an d tell you something I shouldn't?"

Now that he mentioned it, that probably was what she was supposed to b e doing. "I wasn't trained by the Israelis, Mr. al Fayed."

"Yeah .. . I'm sorry about that, too. You must have been prett y scared."

She opened her mouth to shout something back at him but then stoppe d herself when she realized there wasn't even a hint of condescension i n the statement. His apologies had a strangely sincere ring to them.

"I swear to you that if I had even an inkling that you guys were cops , I would have never fired a shot."

"If not the police, then who? This Strand person?"

He laughed quietly over the phone. "You remember that, huh. I guess I m ustn't be as scary as I thought."

"I guess not."

"So who told the police about me, Karen?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

" "I'm not at liberty to say,"" he mocked and then laughed again. "I l ove the way cops talk. Do they teach you that stuff at the academy?

Come on, I have the right to face my accuser. All you patriots haven't carved that out of the Constitution yet, have you?"

She didn't respond.

"You don't know, do you, Karen? You have no idea why you were eve n there."

"We've already been through this, haven't we? You're involved with th e Colombian drug cartels and you killed the Ramirez brothers."

"Was involved with the Colombian cartels. Was. But that was year s ago."

"And the Ramirezes?"

"Look, I've killed a lot of people in my life, but not so many that I f orget them."

"So you're saying you're innocent."

"Innocent .. . Your word, not mine. But I am saying that I didn't kil l these Ramirez guys. And I'm guessing that you believe me because afte r wiping out an entire SWAT team, there's not much of a reason for me t o split hairs on the subject."

Karen dried her hands on a towel and sat down behind a small dinin g table. He was right. She did believe him.

"A very unfortunate mistake," she said, grimacing at her use of he r mother's favorite word. Then, suddenly, she stood again, trying t o shake off the confused haze she was in. She needed to pull hersel f together and stop letting him control the conversation. "But you di d work for the cartels. Isn't that right? What did you do for them?"

"I, uh, thinned out Castel Vela's competition. But only in Colombia.

Never in the States. Now I build furniture. You wouldn't happen t o need a nice hope chest, would you? I doubt the woman I built it for i s going to want it now that I'm public enemy number one."

"My marriage prospects aren't at the point that I would have a whol e hell of a lot of use for a hope chest."

"Keep your newspaper clippings in it."

"Screw you."

"Right."

"So who is Strand?"

"A little obvious, but I guess you are new at this .. ."

"Is he an enemy you made when you were working in Colombia?"

"No, they're pretty much all dead. He's a more recent addition to m y list."

"Come on, Mr. al Fayed. Why on earth wouldn't you want to tell m e this? If you had reason to believe that someone was trying to kil l you, that might mitigate the charges against you. Hell, maybe thi s Strand person called us on purpose to set you up. That kind o f information could give your lawyer a lot to work with .. ."

"I don't think that I really need to worry about my case ever going t o trial. But I appreciate the thought."

His tone suggested that the conversation was over, leaving Kare n scrambling to come up with a way to keep him on the line.

"Why don't we meet? Talk more about this .. ." She smacked hersel f silently in the forehead before the statement was even fully out of he r mouth. Smooth. Very smooth.

He was polite enough to ignore the statement entirely. "So, anyway , the real reason I called was to tell you something .. ."

"Yes?"

"I know what it's like to lose men and I know what it's like to b e abandoned by the people who should be standing behind you. But thi s wasn't your fault. You were put in an impossible situation. Just tr y to remember that while you can't always control what other people thin k of you, you can control what you think of yourself."

She wasn't sure how to respond. After thirty seconds of silence sh e could still hear him breathing.

"Mr. al Fayed?"

"Call me Fade."

"Why did you really call me?"

Another one of those easygoing laughs. "I guess because I don't hav e anyone else to talk to."

The line went dead and she stared at the handset for a few second s before dialing the police.

Chapter Twenty.

The large rolling chalkboard he'd bought took up almost all th e available floor space and forced Egan to lie sideways on the hotel be d in order to read what he'd written on it. Heavy curtains were pulle d against the cloudless day outside, adding to the claustrophobia an d giving the worn-out room the feel and smell of a damp cave.

He'd read through all the files on Fade as well as the ones on the me n Fade had fought with essentially, everything the government had tha t even remotely related to Salam al Fayed. The results had been les s than overwhelming. About half the chalkboard was still completel y blank and the other half was covered with ideas that seemed shaky a t best. He tried to focus on them, but instead found himself starin g blankly at the beer bottle balanced on his chest.

It didn't take long for thoughts of Elise and Kali to start to crow d his mind. He tried to push them away, but they weren't easil y defeated. After about half an hour of getting nothing done, he pulle d out his cell and dialed his home number.

"Hello?"

"What are you doing?"

"Hey, Matt. I just hung up with Charlie. We were talking about th e release."

Charlie was the head of Elise's record label, a pretty good guy who wa s inexplicably devoted to her less-than-profitable career.

"Are you still going to be able to make the date?"

"Shouldn't be a problem. We're going to have to start rehearsing har d and get into the studio pretty quick, though. I'm hoping we can get a few songs together for the show in D. C. next week. Try 'em out i n front of real people."

"Sorry I can't be there to help with Kali."

"It's not a big deal. I'll manage. When are you coming home?"

"It's turned out to be a lot more than I expected. It'll probably be a while."

"Oppressing the masses is a demanding profession."

"I knew you'd understand."

"Well, I'm going to get my revenge. It looks like Charlie wants me t o expand my tour schedule. Maybe as many as thirty cities."

"I guess that's good, though," Egan mumbled. "He must recognize tha t the songs are strong."

"You seem kind of down, Matt. Are you all right?"

"Just sitting in a hotel, looking forward to endless, boring meetings , you know?"

"Are you sure that's all it is?"

The purpose of this call wasn't to practice his dismal ability t o deceive his wife. Actually, what was the purpose? To remind himsel f that he was probably never going to see her again?

"Hey, there's someone at my door," he lied. "I've got to run."

"Kali's jumping up and down trying to grab the phone. Say hello t o her."

"Elise, I "

"Hi, Daddy! Daddy?"

Her voice was full of trust and excitement, and for some reason tha t made it hard for him to breathe.

"Hi, honey. How was school?"

"I'm going to be a gymnast."

"Well, that's sort of sudden. What kind of gymnast are you going t o be?"

"We had a class and I did a flip and it was the best one in class an d Ms.

Reynolds said I could be a gymnast. There are things you walk alon g and bars you swing from and "

He heard Elise's distant voice. "Daddy can't talk long, Kali, he ha s to work. Maybe you should tell him all about your class later."

"Okay. Are you coming home tomorrow? I can show you .. ."

"Not tomorrow," Egan said quietly. "But soon, okay? So practice up. I w ant that flip perfect .. ."

When he hung up, he squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out everythin g around him. A poor idea poorly executed. It was time to lock Elis e and Kali in a part of his mind he never traveled. They were nothin g but a liability to him now.

He removed the beer bottle from his chest and forced himself to focu s on the chalkboard again.

It seemed most productive to work this problem based on the assumptio n that Fade would kill him in a stand-up fight. And if Strand's ne w enforcers were unfortunate enough to be there at the time, they'd probably end up dead, too. And if cops showed up, then the body coun t would just keep on going. That meant that Egan had to be smarter. To find a way to slink up behind him .. .

And then what?

Egan shook his head violently, trying again to discipline his mind.

Concentrate on finding him first, then worry about the rest of it.

The first column of writing on the board covered the path the cops wer e taking essentially the most obvious lines of investigation based on th e information they had available to them. According to the reports tha t he'd seen so far, though, their enthusiasm wasn't what he'd expected.

The Collector case was sucking up enormous resources and Pickerin g seemed more interested in making sure his own ass was covered tha n actually finding the man responsible for wiping out his SWAT team.

So far, the police had examined Fade's phone records and found that h e didn't really talk to anyone the most notable recent calls being t o Sharper Image and a model airplane supplier who sold him the things h e needed to turn his house into a giant booby trap. Interviews with hi s neighbors, customers, and colleagues completed a picture of a ma n without a friend in the world.

Egan pulled another beer from the tiny refrigerator behind him, tryin g not to think about what it had taken to turn Fade into the angry , violent, and depressed man he'd become. People used to reschedul e parties if he couldn't attend.

The remaining space on the right side of the board described the res t of the dead ends the police were pursuing. Fade's parents wer e deceased and he and his one sister had never gotten along.

Of course, there was an APB on the car Karen saw him drive away in, bu t he would have dumped it by now. Searches of airports, bus terminals , rental car agencies, and cab records had yielded exactly zip, as ha d their half-hearted examination of local car and motorcycle purchases.

One of the police's fundamental problems was that they assumed Fade wa s running, whereas Egan could pretty much guarantee that he was goin g nowhere until he did what he'd set out to do. Initially, Pickering's people had tried to track Fade with his cell phone, using real-tim e information on which repeater was picking up his signal. Unfortunately , though, Fade seemed to have become a bit more technologically savvy i n the past few years and had used cash to purchase a satellite phone wit h a thousand prepaid hours. According to Billy, the best they could hop e for is that he'd be on the phone when the satellite he was linked t o went over the horizon, giving them his longitude and narrowing hi s location down to a not so helpful few thousand square miles.

The car was an opportunity. Fade loved old cars particularl y convertibles. Egan remembered his encyclopedic knowledge and the lon g sermons on the subject that Fade had used to fill the inevitabl e downtime people in his profession suffered. Based on the car Egan ha d seen up on blocks in his yard, that fascination was one of the fe w things he hadn't abandoned.

Fade would see this as his last hurrah and, as such, it seemed lik e he'd want to go out driving something fitting. Money was an issue, o f course, but based on his lifestyle and the fact that the money he'd made from the Colombians was never used for his back operation, i t seemed reasonable to assume he was cash rich.

Beyond that, Egan didn't have much. The safe house he'd taken Kare n Manning to proved that he'd been ready for somebody from his past t o come after him eventually though he probably hadn't expected it to b e the U. S. government. That meant he probably had a number of disguise s and identities set up, as well as an appropriate weapons collection.

Strand's name had been mentioned in Manning's debriefing, but there ha d been no mention of a first name or Homeland Security. The police ha d cross-referenced the thousands of Strands in America with people wh o had done prison time or were suspected of being involved in the dru g trade and come up empty. At this point, it wasn't a line o f investigation they were willing to devote much manpower to. Likewis e Fade's history in Colombia. The buried DEA reports and the CIA stuf f were unavailable to them, so they really had no way even to start dow n that road.

Pickering's people had pulled rental and purchase records of the typ e of real estate Karen had described being taken to, but there wasn't much to go on. She had seen only the inside and could only tell the m approximately how long it took to get there from his house. It woul d be found eventually, but it was going to take a while.

The police had a copy of his brief military record, but would run int o a dead end when they tried to look into the now-defunct CIA fron t company he'd worked for after being discharged. Any attempt to trac k down the former employees of Ramsey Security Systems would lead the m into a maze with no outlet.

So Egan was left with something of an advantage over Fade's othe r pursuers. He not only had intimate knowledge of Ramsey Security whic h he'd worked for but access to the CIA background check done on Fade , including detailed information that went back to his early childhood.

Unfortunately, it was a street that went both ways. After years o f friendship, Fade knew Egan's entire life story, too. And what littl e he didn't know wouldn't be terribly hard to find out.

Strand, though, was a different story. Fade knew only his name an d that he worked at Homeland Security. In addition, Strand's phon e number and address were unlisted, making finding him even harder. Of course, Fade could try to acquire him at the office, but that was kin d of risky and obvious.

Would it be possible to use Strand to draw Fade in? Maybe place som e false information in the public record? Honestly, the idea of usin g Strand as bait was pretty attractive essentially, a no-lose situation.

If it helped him find Fade, great. On the other hand, if Strand ende d up stopping a bullet, oh well.

Unfortunately, he seemed a little reluctant to leave his office thes e days.

Egan laid his head back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling.

Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke aloud to the empty room. "Ho w the hell did we get here, Fade?"

Chapter Twenty-One.

"Close the door and grab a chair, Bill," Strand said, moving his ow n out from behind his desk and into a position that would make th e meeting feel less autocratic. Fraiser did as he was told, sitting nex t to Lauren and running a hand through his hair. It was ten o'clock a t night and the three of them were the only people left in the office. No one had said anything out loud, but none of them were going home.

Strand had sent for his clothes and other supplies, and he knew tha t both Lauren and Fraiser were quietly making similar arrangements.

Having his team scared and sleeping on the floor wasn't ideal, but i t was the price he had to pay for their unwavering focus an d round-the-clock vigilance. He was convinced that telling them al Faye d had threatened them was the right decision.

"I just wanted to talk a little to get a feel for how things are going , how you're holding up, and maybe to bounce around some ideas." Stran d kept his tone as relaxed as he could manage, though under th e circumstances it took a fair amount of concentration just to keep hi s voice even. "Why don't you start by giving me a run-down on where w e stand right now."

Lauren looked over at Fraiser, but neither spoke.

"Is there a problem?"

"We don't really stand anywhere," Lauren said finally. "We gathered u p the initial information that you and Matt asked for and he just walke d out of here with it. When we tried to talk to him, he basically tol d me to shut up and shoved me out of the way .. ."

Fraiser stared uncomfortably at the floor. He undoubtedly wanted t o defend his boss, but was smart enough to know that, in the end, h e worked for Strand.

"I see. Bill? Do you know what Matt's up to?"

"He's not at home he's afraid al Fayed could acquire him there. He's at a hotel going through the information we gave him and figuring ou t the best way to track him."

"Do we know what hotel?"

Fraiser shook his head. "I never asked. I could find out."

"Do it. Have you talked to him since he left?"

Another shake of the head. "But he'll call. He just needs som e time."

Strand leaned back in his chair, fighting to keep his expressio n completely passive. How in the fuck had this happened? The plan he'd devised couldn't have been more simple or foolproof. Who could hav e anticipated that the police were too stupid and incompetent to arrest a single man? And now that incompetence had left him almost completel y reliant on Matt Egan a man with questionable loyalties and th e political instincts of a head of cabbage.

"I think we need to give him a chance, Lauren. Matt's a good man .. ."

Strand let his voice trail off, leaving an obvious "but" at the end o f his sentence. He put a finger to his lips and pretended to be mullin g over what to say next. Finally, "That brings me to a difficult point.

Matt's had a long friendship with al Fayed and while that has positiv e aspects for us, it could also have some drawbacks."

The trick here was to create just enough suspicion to ensure tha t Fraiser and Lauren's loyalties stayed with him, but not so much tha t they might undermine Egan's efforts. It seemed likely that he wa s harboring some half-assed idea about trying to extricate al Fayed fro m the position he was in and that it would likely blow up in their faces.

Over the years, Strand had learned to tolerate all the Neandertha l military brotherhood crap that swirled around this part of th e government, but hell if he was going to let it get him killed.

"Obviously, Matt is a very loyal and honorable man and, because o f that, he must be struggling with this situation. If he conics face t o face with al Fayed, will he hesitate? And if he does, will al Faye d escape? Or worse, kill him? What I'm saying here is that Matt's judgment might be a bit clouded and that we need to be thinking an d questioning all the time. If you have any problems ideas that w e should be looking at, or if you feel like Matt may not be giving yo u the whole story, I want you to come straight to me. If we work as a team, I have no doubt that we're going to get through this. Al Faye d has virtually no resources and ours are pretty much unlimited."

Lauren and Fraiser nodded weakly.

"Look, we don't want Matt taking this thing on by himself or, for tha t matter, anyone doing anything on their own. We may have only on e chance at al Fayed and we need to make sure that we don't blow tha t chance."

In truth, his objective was to remove Egan from everything hi s involvement wasn't critical to. Strand already had Lauren quietl y sanitizing the police reports of any mention that al Fayed ha d contacted Karen Manning. The cops continued to display their idiocy b y assuming that al Fayed had fled and weren't even bothering to watc h Manning. He wouldn't make the same mistake.

"So, in order to be sure we have a grasp of what's going on, I wan t everything you get to come straight to me for approval before it goe s out to Matt. Is that understood?"

More nods.

"Finally, we need to start tracking the news agencies. Al Fayed migh t try to go to someone to get his story out. Bill, why don't you tak e the lead on that." Yes, sir.

"Okay. Are we all on the same page? Again, I'm not trying to singl e Matt out here, I'm just saying that we need to have multiple eyes o n everything that comes through we can't afford to miss anything. Doe s everyone understand? Bill?"

"I understand."

"But do you agree? Because if you don't or you have some other idea s on the subject, I want to hear them. That's why we're here."

"No, sir, I don't. I think you're right we can't afford to mis s anything."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Fade put on his headset and began playing the twelve messages on hi s cell phone. The fact that his number wasn't listed had done little t o discourage his more resourceful admirers.

He slurped the last of his coffee, smiling as a man with a shakin g voice recounted an elaborate theory regarding the police department's infiltration by space aliens and asking what color the men he'd kille d bled. The second message had a more typical "fuck the fuzz" theme an d he deleted it after listening to only a few seconds. Number three wa s a re-porter: "Mr. al Fayed, my name is Kevin Swale and I'm with Th e Washington Post. I'd really like to talk to you. I know you'r e probably reluctant, but if you look at my stuff I think you'll find i t pretty even-handed. It wouldn't hurt for you to get your side of th e story "

Fade deleted the message and skipped through a few others unti l stopping on the soothing voice of a police negotiator who didn't reall y have much to say. Then a few more cop haters and that was it.

Earlier that day he'd gotten a message suggesting he was one of th e four horsemen of the Apocalypse and that the whole episode had bee n foretold by Revelations. Or was it Nostradamus? One of those.

"Can I get you anything else?"

Fade removed his earpiece and glanced up at the waitress. It was Sa t found near the Columbia University campus, which worked well for him.

His disguise was pretty thorough, if somewhat dopey looking, but yo u never knew when some art student with a photographic memory for face s would point a finger and start screaming.

"This wasn't bad," he said, pointing to his empty coffee mug. "But I'm thinking something more festive. One of those coffee mocha chai latt e things."

She looked a little perplexed.

"Just bring me something really elaborate and expensive."

She shrugged and started for the counter, allowing him to return hi s attention to the computer screen in front of him. The whole Interne t thing had turned out to be a bit of a letdown. After all the hype , he'd assumed that he could just type Strand's name into a search engin e and come away with pretty much his whole life story. The sad truth wa s that the only thing he'd turned up was a brief bio on a site devoted t o a conference where he'd spoken.

So now he knew that Strand was forty-nine years old, unmarried, went t o Harvard for his undergrad, and was now taking classes at Georgetown.

He'd been with the NSA before taking a job at Homeland Security wher e he worked on "classified projects." He was a native of the Chicag o area, where there were countless Strands who may or may not have bee n related to him. The D. C. area had even more Strands but not a singl e Hillel Not that it really mattered. It seemed unlikely that he wa s hanging out at home waiting to be shot.

In retrospect, calling him had been stupid. It had put him on guard.

Fade didn't really regret it, though. He wanted him to be afraid. He wanted him to be consumed by it.

The waitress slid a tall glass mug containing an artistically swirle d drink onto the table next to him. An energetic slurp left him wit h nothing much more than a whipped cream mustache and a burned tongue , prompting him to set the mug back down and return his attention to th e computer.

The likely scenario was that Strand had picked up a few Special Op s guys as protection and that he was either living at his office or ha d retreated to an "undisclosed location." That didn't leave a lot o f options. He could stake out Homeland Security headquarters in the hop e that he was still there and would eventually leave, but that seemed a little obvious and a lot dangerous.

The bottom line was that this investigative crap sucked. Tedious, tim e consuming, and complicated. He'd always had Matt to take care of thi s stuff for him. Good thing, too. If it had been left to him, he an d his team would have probably ended up in the middle of Syria asking th e local farmers how to get to Iraq.

It was hard not to wonder what exactly Egan was doing at that moment.

Not hiding out at his office. Not his style. No, he was out ther e devising some sneaky and underhanded way to track him down and shoo t him in the back. Not that he didn't respect that approach. It wa s smart and added a much-needed element of excitement to the whol e operation.. ..

He took another, slightly more cautious sip of his drink and reminde d himself that Matt wasn't the priority. Hillel Strand was at the top o f the list and he needed to focus if he was going to get him.

So where did he go from here? No doubt there were people who could us e the Internet and public records to track down everything includin g Strand's favorite color, but he wasn't one of them. Maybe he should b e calling back some of those wackos who'd figured out his unlisted numbe r and asking them for advice.

Or better yet, maybe he should call about the Caddy. See how Isidr o was doing .. .

No. No more excuses. As hard as this was now, it'd only get harde r when Egan and the cops started to close in. And, of course, there wa s his back to think about. His scuffle with SWAT hadn't helped a whol e hell of a lot and he was still waiting to get full feeling back int o his right foot. Chasing people around was going to get kind o f complicated if his legs stopped working.

Someone probably Egan had once told him that Domino's gathered u p unlisted numbers and sold them to private intelligence companies. Mayb e there was something there. He grinned and tried to picture himsel f putting a gun to some pimply kid's head and demanding access to th e company's national database. Oh, and a pie with pepperoni and blac k olives.

Amazon listed a bunch of books about finding people that covered thing s like land records, credit reports, and high school reunion lists, bu t who wanted to get involved in that nonsense? What was he, a librarian?

Karen Manning. That's who he needed. According to the news, she wa s not only a kind of hot looking badass, she was smart enough to be on e of the people trying to find that loser who was running around Virgini a killing girls.

Fade glanced over at a very unfair and unflattering article about he r in the newspaper lying next to him and shook his head. The woman too k a job that demanded she put her life on the line to help others and no w she was getting completely screwed. He wondered how many reporters ou t there would have driven blindly into the war zone he'd created to tr y to save their guys.

He started to reach for his drink but then forgot about it as he los t himself in wondering how many twists of fate it would have taken to pu t them together. He could have decided to ignore the attack on tha t little Arab girl and instead gone straight to the extraction site.

Karen could have blown off the cops and joined the military where a woman like her would have been encouraged to go out for the new femal e Special Ops program. And if those two things had been the case, i t seems certain that they would have eventually run into each other.

Maybe they'd have hit it off. Maybe even gotten married. After a while, they would have taken training or administrative jobs an d started a family .. .

"Do you like the latte?"

Fade blinked hard and looked up at the waitress. "It's great.

Thanks."

"Anything else?"

He shook his head and watched her weave through the empty cafe towar d the bar. Enough daydreaming. It was time to either move forward o n this thing or walk away from it.

He glanced down at a legal pad sitting next to the keyboard and diale d the number he'd written there into his cell phone.

"Homeland Security. How can I direct your call?"

"Hillel Strand's office, please."

There was a brief delay and then a woman's voice. "Office of Strategi c Planning and Acquisition. How can I help you?"

"Hi. Hillel asked me to send him some documents and he neglected t o give me his floor, which I assume I need to include in the address."

"Go ahead and send it to the sixth. That'll get it there." "Great.

And who am I speaking to? Is this his assistant?" "No, this is Kell y Braith. I'm the receptionist." "Oh, okay. Thanks, Kelly. I'll ge t this right to him." Fade clicked off the phone and pulled u p BigBook . Com. Maybe Ms. Braith wasn't as secretive as her boss.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Perhaps if he'd written bigger or added some graphs, the chalkboar d wouldn't look so empty. But he hadn't and it was time to face the fac t that not only were there very few potential paths to Fade, the one s that did exist were more than a little bit overgrown.

"Okay, we're all here," came Strand's distant-sounding voice over th e phone.

Egan adjusted his earpiece and began pacing back and forth to th e degree that the cramped hotel room would allow. "The first thing w e need to look at is cars. Fade is a nut for classic cars and h e particularly likes convertibles. Billy, I want you to go through th e local papers and call the used dealers. Find out if anything old an d sexy has been sold to anyone even close to Fade's description."

"What about rental places, Matt? They've got these dream car renta l places now," Billy replied.

"News to me. Give it a shot."

"I'm on it."

"Okay. Next. When we did the background check on Fade at the CIA w e had some problems with a friend of his from high school. He'd neve r spent a day in jail but we concluded that he was a fairly well-place d drug dealer in New York."

"Javan Franklin," Lauren said.

"That's him. It seems likely that he's the one who put Fade in touc h with the Colombians. I'd like to talk to him."

"We'll find him," Strand said.

"I assume there's no activity on his credit cards or ATM?"

"Nothing," Lauren said. "And even if there is, remember that th e police are watching, too."

"What else are they doing?"

"Their most recent report is on your e-mail," Fraiser said. "Basicall y they're doing exactly what we expected. No surprises. Not yet."

"Good. Keep me up on that. I don't need to run into any cops."

"Don't worry," Strand said. "We're staying on top of it. Where do yo u stand? Any movement?"

"I'm working on contacting some of the men he served with in the nav y and at Ramsey Security people who he might have stayed in touch with.

Maybe they'll have some ideas about where he'd go."

"Who exactly? Do we need to get you current addresses an d background?"

Egan didn't answer immediately. It was certain that Strand would wan t to keep as close an eye on him as possible and was anxious to get a tail on him. While Egan hadn't really done anything to actively kee p his location secret, he also hadn't volunteered it. At some point i t was a fence he'd be forced to stop straddling, but for now he fel t better on his own.

"Thanks, but I think I can handle it. Is there anything else?"

Silence.

"Okay, then. You can get me on my cell."

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Karen Manning had never been to this part of southeast D. C. and , judging by the stares she was getting from the people on the street , not many other young blonde women in Hondas ever had either. The rout e hadn't looked particularly easy to follow on the map and the realit y turned out to be even worse a maze of poorly paved, garbage-strew n roads bordered by crumbling old homes and boxlike apartmen t buildings.

She stopped at an intersection with no sign, took a wild guess, an d turned right. Not exactly the most scientific navigation metho d available, but it worked. After about two miles she found a stree t blocked by police cars and pedestrians. She eased forward, slowin g enough to allow time for parents to shoo their children back onto th e sidewalks and to hear the occasional obscene suggestion from a laughin g teenaged boy.

She made it to within twenty feet of a yellow barricade and steppe d from the car, digging her badge from her pocket as she approached a young cop working crowd control. It turned out not to be necessary an d he waved her through, not bothering to hide a mildly disguste d expression that she was quickly growing accustomed to.

Most of the activity seemed to be centered around something that at on e time had been a car but was now just a few parts clinging precariousl y to a wheelless chassis. There were two fingerprint guys going over th e dented remains of the body and someone else beneath what was left o f the dashboard, apparently looking for fibers. The rest of the cops o n duty were fanning out, questioning the people in the street, an d knocking on doors.

She spotted John Wakefield leaning against one of the barricades an d started toward him.

"Karen! What are you doing here?" he said, pushing himself to a ful l upright position and giving her a brief hug.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. If some reporter sees you an d thinks you're looking into this, they're going to come after us fo r putting the deaths of our guys over the deaths of all those women ..

."

He shrugged disinterestedly. "I miss my sidekick and I was curious.

Besides, I'm dead-ended on the Collector until .. . Well, you know."

Unfortunately, she did. Until another woman disappeared and Stephan y Narwal's body showed up.

"Well, I can't say I'm not glad to see you. You're probably the onl y person on the force who's still willing to talk to me." She motione d toward the steel skeleton parked against the curb. "What's th e story?"

"Not much so far. Obviously, the car's seen better days."

"But it's definitely Fade's?"

"Fade?"

"Apparently that's what he calls himself."

"I heard that you'd talked to him, but I thought it was just anothe r rumor."

"No, it's true, but I didn't do a very good job. I couldn't ge t anything out of him that we could use."

He nodded thoughtfully, looking down and picking imaginary lint fro m his slacks, a mannerism she'd seen a thousand times but still didn't know how to read.

"Well, to answer your question, yes. It is definitely al Fayed's w e managed to get a serial number off one of the pieces that's left. I t looks like he dropped it off late last night but there are no securit y cameras in the area and, of course, no one saw a thing."

Karen motioned behind him and they retreated back to the barricade s where he could take some of the weight off his arthritic knees. "I d oubt anyone is going to be very anxious to talk to us. I'm guessin g they don't love cops around here and everyone will think we're tryin g to finger them for stripping the car or to get them to inform o n whoever did it."

"That's about the size of it," Wakefield agreed. "We're checking ca b companies to see if anyone was picked up here, but cabbies aren't fon d of coming into this area at night, so I'm guessing he hoofed it to th e closest metro or to another car he had stashed .. ."

"That seems a little risky in this neighborhood."

Wakefield smiled. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this gu y walks pretty much wherever he wants."

"So another dead end," she said, the frustration creeping into he r voice despite her effort to stay in control. "That's turning into th e story of our lives, John."

"It kind of is, isn't it... Uh-oh."

"What?" Karen said, noticing that he was staring over her lef t shoulder.

"Our fearless leader."

"Great."

"What the hell are you doing here?" she heard Captain Pickering say.

When she turned to respond it became clear that he wasn't talking t o her. In fact, he didn't even seem to be aware of her existence.

"I was in the neighborhood," Wakefield said.

"Well, get the hell out of the neighborhood. The goddamn press i s going to show up any minute."

Wakefield pushed himself off the barricade again and patted Karen o n the arm before wandering off. "Call me if you need anything. And kee p your chin up."

She watched him as he started to push his way through the peopl e surrounding the crime scene, feeling a slight pang of jealousy mixe d with her gratitude. It must be nice to be bulletproof.

"These people are trying to work," Pickering said. "I don't need yo u disrupting them."

A number of responses came to mind but she kept them to herself , instead brushing by him without a word. She'd only made it about te n feet before he called after her.

"Wait for me in my car, Karen."

His tone was both commanding and dismissive. Why wouldn't it be?

She just kept going along, not uttering a single meaningful protes t while he twisted the knife he'd put in her back. Always the loya l scapegoat.

He was parked right next to her and she considered just getting in he r car and driving away, but immediately dismissed the idea. A s satisfying as it would be, it was time for them to have this thin g out.

When she walked by the young cop watching the perimeter again, hi s expression had evolved into a superior smirk that she actually wasn't accustomed to.

"You have a problem?" she said before she could stop herself.

He apparently hadn't expected to be challenged and took a step back.

"No."

With that cleared up, Karen covered the rest of the distance t o Pickering's car and sat down on the immaculate hood, feeling the rivet s in her jeans subtly scrape the paint. Childish? Of course. But oddl y satisfying.

From her slightly elevated position, she could see him speaking to th e men dusting the car, arms crossed regally over his decorated chest.

What they were saying was impossible to know, but judging from his bod y language, it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

He circled the remains of the vehicle a few times, crouchin g occasionally to get a closer look, and then started back toward his ca r and her.

"Our psychologist thinks al Fayed might be developing a connection t o you," he said, when he came within earshot. "Ken thinks you shoul d call him. Try to build a rapport."

She remained silent, deducing that he must be fairly desperate t o forego ordering her the hell off his hood.

"I want you to follow me to the precinct and we're going to set up a call."

She looked past him at the faces of a group of small children playin g on the sidewalk. If Pickering managed to get Fade through using her , it seemed likely that he'd do everything he could to minimize her rol e and take all the credit.

"What's in it for me, Captain?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"You get to help us find the person who killed your men."

"My men are dead and catching al Fayed isn't going to change that."

"What the hell are you talking about, Karen? You're a cop. This i s what you get paid for."

"What I'm talking about is the fact that I'm being crucified in th e press and you won't let me defend myself."

"I can't control what they're saying about you."

"No, but you could get on TV and make some supportive comments instea d of letting a couple of wives and anonymous sources do all the talking.

How would you have done things different, Captain? I haven't heard a lot about that. I also haven't heard that I recommended against goin g in like that. All anyone's talking about is how bad I screwed up an d how I'm not qualified to lead a SWAT team."

Pickering shrugged noncommittally. "I can't comment about an ongoin g investigation."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to show the same support for m e as you do the men on the force. Or to un gag me and let me tell m y side of the story."

"You know I can't let you "

"I don't know anything about the investigation into al Fayed or, fo r that matter, the investigation into my conduct. So I really have n o way of saying anything except my version of what happened."

"Jesus Christ, Karen! We've got a heavily armed lunatic running aroun d the streets and you're worried about some bad PR? You know what you'r e going to do? You're going to do exactly what I tell you. And that's get in your car and follow me back to the precinct where you're goin g to get on the phone and help us catch this asshole. Do yo u understand?"

He started around to the driver's side door but then stopped when sh e didn't move. "That's an order, Karen."

"And one I'm more than willing to follow. I just want a littl e something in return."

"You're determined to play politics with this, aren't you? You'r e willing to just let the psychopath who killed your men walk around fre e .. ."

"It might be better than helping you find him so you can throw anothe r SWAT team at him."

"Still trying to make this all my fault?" he shouted. "Let me tel l you what the difference will be. This time we'll have someon e competent in command."

She slid off the hood, scraping paint as she went, and spun toward hi m ready to shout back, but managed to stop herself. If there was an y time to keep her infamous temper in check, this was it.

"Look, Captain .. . You don't like me and I'm sorry for that. Th e truth is, though, I was and am a qualified SWAT leader and I followe d procedure to a T on this operation. The whole department is being mad e to look bad by all this I look like an idiot, our guys look poorl y trained, and you look like you can't run an effective organization. No matter how often you imply that I was forced down your throat by th e feminists, eventually the press is going to get bored hearing it an d they're going to turn on you."

He managed to unset his jaw and opened his mouth to say something bu t she cut him off.

"I'm not trying to portray myself as a hero here. Our guys died and I w as in charge. But the treatment I'm getting isn't fair. All I'm asking is for you to tell the whole story of what happened. I'm willing to take my lumps where I deserve them, but I won't stand silen t anymore while my name is dragged through the mud."

He opened his mouth again but no sound came out until he'd thoroughl y scanned the area to see if anyone was close enough to hear. "Cal l Fayed and I'll think about it."

"I'd also like to be taken off administrative leave and put back on th e Collector case. John needs me and it'll help show that I have th e department's confidence."

"But you don't have the department's confidence, Karen. Jesus, wha t are you going to ask for next? A fucking promotion? A raise? Wha t kind of other rewards do you feel you deserve for getting an entir e SWAT team wiped out? People are calling you the Widowmaker fo r Christ's sake. How would it look to the men if I start making excuse s for you?"

"I'm not asking for excuses," she said, still controlling her anger.

Her mother would be so proud. "I just want all the facts out there an d I want to be allowed to go back to working on catching a man who is , right now, torturing a woman to death."

He didn't answer for almost a minute. "We'll see how you do wit h Fayed."

Karen shook her head. "You first."

"You're overplaying your hand, Karen. How about instead I get on TV a nd tell the press you're not cooperating with our investigation int o the deaths of your men?"

"Or you could just get on TV and tell the press that, based on th e facts you've gathered so far, I acted within department policy an d therefore you're reinstating me to active duty."

"I'm not prepared to do that. I don't know what the facts are."

"Come on, Captain!" she said, finally losing her meticulousl y constructed calm. "You know exactly what happened out there. You hav e a recording of everything that was said during the assault! You hav e craters from bomb blasts. You have a burned-out house. You hav e bodies. You have al Fayed's remote control and night vision cameras.

This isn't rocket science!"

Her outburst caused a barely perceptible smile to stretch his lips. "I s this an ultimatum?"

"I'm sorry. I thought I was being clear. Yes, it is."

"Then, no. I won't be dictated to."

She pulled her badge from her pocket again and this time threw it , hitting him hard in the chest. "Then let the games begin."

Chapter Twenty-five.

Matt Egan squinted against the sun glaring off the cars lined up i n front of him and walked quickly across the lot to a freshly painte d trailer on the other side.

Billy and Lauren had done an inhuman amount of work over the las t forty-eight hours, helped along by the fact that they had decided t o relocate permanently to OSPA's office suite. Both were absolutel y convinced that Fade was hiding in their bushes with a piano wire i n just their neck size. Maybe Strand had been right so far thei r boundless motivation and long hours had been a serious plus.

Based on an exhaustive review of regional classified ads and a poll o f every used car dealer within five hundred miles, they'd determined tha t twenty-eight classic cars had changed hands in the relevant time frame.

Based on Fade's historical love of convertibles, as well as the rathe r noisy call he'd made to Strand, Egan had decided to focus first on th e three rag tops It turned out that one didn't run and was towed away b y its sixty-year-old purchaser. The second was in mint condition, bu t was purchased by a woman as a gift for her husband. The third, though , had been sold by this small Baltimore dealership to a male in his earl y thirties.

The man who stepped from the trailer and closed the distance to Ega n with his hand outstretched didn't fit the stereotype of a used ca r salesman. Barely forty, he had a relaxed smile and gait that fi t perfectly with his unpressed cotton dress shirt and khakis.

"Hi, my name's Troy Powell," he said. "Can I help you with somethin g or are you just browsing?"

Egan had run through a number of ways to introduce himself, but non e had been completely free of drawbacks. Normally, he'd just whip ou t his Homeland Security credentials and get whatever information h e wanted. Not his best option under the circumstances.

"I'm Matt. Nice to meet you. Actually, I wanted to talk to you abou t a guy who bought an old Caddy from you a couple of days ago."

The man withdrew his hand with a little more force than was necessary.

"Look, that car had a lot of potential, but I told the guy it wasn't all that sound. He told me he was a mechanic and was looking to make a project out of it. Just because I sell used cars doesn't make me "

Egan grinned as disarmingly as he could and held his hands out in a gesture for peace. "Take it easy. I don't care about the car. I'm looking for the man."

"Are you a cop?"

He shook his head.

"Then I really can't help you I can't just hand out persona l information on my customers. I've got some nice cars on the lot , though, if you're in the market .. ."

"Could we talk inside for a moment?"

Powell shrugged and Egan followed him up the stairs, closing the doo r behind them.

"The thing is, I'm a private investigator specializing in tracking dow n deadbeat dads. The guy I'm looking for disappeared about a year ag o and left his wife high and dry with two little boys. She's trying t o go to school and work full time to put food on the table while thi s jerk-off collects classic cars. I just want to find him and get him t o comply with a court order to help support his kids."

Powell fell into a chair behind his cluttered desk and folded his arm s across his chest. "I'm not sure what I can do to help you, even if I w anted to. People aren't obligated to provide information when the y buy a car unless they're looking for a loan and this guy paid cash.

Basically, all he told me was his name."

"And that was?"

Powell didn't answer, prompting Egan to dig into his wallet and produc e three one-hundred-dollar bills. "This probably doesn't seem like muc h to you," he said, pushing the money across the desk toward the man.

"But it's a fortune to the woman who gave it to me."

Powell stared at the money for a good thirty seconds and then said , "I've got two kids of my own. Girls. You?"

It was a simple question. Why was the answer so hard? "I'm no t married," Egan said finally.

"Did you get that, Billy?" Egan said into his cell phone as he took a left that he hoped would lead him to the highway. Powell had finall y agreed to tell him what he knew. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

His description of the Cadillac's buyer had hit all the right buttons a fit looking man of about thirty-five, five foot ten, dark complexion.

More interesting was the bleached blond hair, earring, and blue tinte d rectangular glasses. A maximally effective disguise for a man wh o couldn't go the fake beard route without looking like he was going t o blow something up.

"Got it," Fraiser said. "Do you think it's him?"

"I think it's him."

"Yes!" Fraiser shouted. "I knew you'd get him, Matt."

"I haven't gotten anything it's just a start. Run down the name h e gave, but I'm guessing he just made it up on the spot."

"And the car?"

"I don't know. The guy said it wasn't all that sound mechanically, s o he might be taking it in to get some work done. Call around and se e what you can find. Do the quickie paint places first, okay?"

"No problem. But even if we know the color and have the temporary ta g number, what're the chances you're going to just drive by him?"

"We're going to have to call the police and get an APB put out. Tel l them it's a terrorism suspect and that under no circumstances are the y to stop or approach the vehicle. Tell them we need him to lead us t o his cell, or something."

"Uh, okay," he replied, sounding a bit uncertain. It seemed likel y that he would run off to report all this to Strand right after he hun g up and there would be some subsequent hand wringing about involving th e police. But what choice did they have? They needed the manpower.

"If Hillel has a problem with the APB have him call me."

"Right. Anything else?"

"Unfortunately, that's it."

"Are you getting anywhere with his old friends? Have you talked t o them yet?"

"Most of them, but I've come up empty. None of them have seen or hear d from Fade in years."

"Would they tell you if they had?"

It was a good question. Egan was playing it like he was trying t o quietly track him down before the cops cornered him and more peopl e died, but Fade's old teammates would still be reluctant to give him u p both because they liked and respected him and because nobody wanted t o take the chance of crossing him. In their minds, the smart move wa s not to get involved one way or another and let Fade take care o f himself.

"I honestly don't know, Billy. I've got one more name on my list. I f I get anything, I'll call you."

He hung up and immediately dialed the number of Roy Buckner, the forme r Delta operative and major redneck asshole that Strand had wanted t o hire. Unlike the people Egan had talked to so far, Buckner hated Fade.

After the mission they had completed together, Fade had made it clea r he'd never work with the man again. And when Salam al Fayed sai d something like that, it tended to ring in the ears of the people wh o ran things. It didn't take long for Buckner to find himself remove d from the operational side and eventually forced out. Typically, h e blamed Fade instead of his own piss-poor performance.

Egan would use a slightly different back story with Buckner: that Fad e had lost it and he was helping the cops track him down. It seeme d unlikely that Buckner would know anything useful, but if he did he'd almost certainly be happy to do anything he could to contribute t o Fade's destruction.

"Hello?"

"Hi. This is Matt Egan again. I'm still trying to track down Roy."

"Look," Buckner's wife said over the sound of a screaming child. "He's not here just like he wasn't here the last two times you called. Wha t do you want me to do?"

"Maybe you could give me his cell number and then I wouldn't have t o keep bothering you."

"He doesn't have it on. Like I told you, I left him a message that yo u called "

"Is there an office, or a place he eats, or anywhere else I might b e able to reach him?"

"He's on a job and I don't know where the hell he is. He's been up i n D. C. and Virginia and he called me a few hours ago from Baltimore. Com e to think of it, he didn't mention you at all. So maybe that means h e doesn't want to talk to you."

Egan accelerated up the on ramp to 1-95, feeling his jaw tighten as h e replayed the woman's words over in his head. He's been up in D. C. an d Virginia and he called me a few hours ago from Baltimore.

"Thank you," he said finally. "You've been very helpful."

Egan wrote the things he'd learned from the used car dealer on hi s chalkboard and fell back onto the empty bed, covering the neck of hi s beer with his thumb to keep it from sloshing. The board was almos t two-thirds full now providing at least the illusion of progress. He lay there and contemplated it uselessly until his cell phone bega n ringing.

"Hello?"

"Matt. I hear you're already on your way to cracking this thing.

Excellent work." Hillel Strand's voice. "I've got Lauren and Bil l here, let me put you on the speaker."

"Matt? Can you hear me?" Lauren said.

"Yeah."

"We've been working on the car, but we can't find anyone who's painte d it. We'll call around again in a couple of days. Also, there's nothing under the name he gave. We've checked for bank accounts , driver's licenses, credit cards. You name it. Your instinct wa s probably right on this he just made it up as he was walking onto th e lot."

"And the place he took Karen Manning?"

"We're working through real estate rentals and purchases of those type s of properties over the past few years, but there's a huge number and n o efficient way to search it."

"What about the APB?"

Strand's voice came back on. "That's a pretty risky strategy, Matt.. .

But I agree. We need to take the chance. The police have th e description of the car, the tag, and al Fayed. We've told them not t o approach him and to contact us immediately if they spot him."

"Fine. Anything else?"

"I'm closing in on al Fayed's drug dealer friend," Fraiser said. "Bu t these kinds of people don't exactly put their names in the phon e book."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, hopefully. The next day at the latest."

"Faster is better, Billy. Anything else?"

"Not really. You probably saw on the news that the police found a l Fayed's car in a shitty area of D. C. but there wasn't much left of it.

The police reports are on your e-mail if you want to take a look a t them, but I wouldn't bother. There's nothing there."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

"It's green."

Isidro chewed his lip and danced uncomfortably from foot to foot -a n incredibly odd mannerism for a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound mound o f tattoo-covered muscle.

"We did the first coat of black and the painter called.... It, uh , looked more like something Batman would drive than James Bond. Ou r paint guy came up with this. It's British Racing Green over a pear l base coat. It's not stock, but you gotta admit, it's fuckin g stunning."

Fade nodded but didn't say anything, instead continuing hi s circumnavigation of the Cadillac. When he made it to the gleamin g front bumper, he motioned toward a subtle bulge in the hood.

"What's up with that?"

"We had to fabricate an entirely new hood, but it doesn't really chang e the car's lines. We needed to be able to fit this .. ." He popped th e latch and exposed an entirely new motor. Fade leaned inside, actuall y feeling a little giddy as he examined the massive red, black, an d chrome power plant, then turned his attention to the matte blac k machine guns running alongside it. The barrels lined up with tw o cleverly camouflaged holes just above the headlights. When he stood u p straight again, he was struggling to appear unimpressed.

"Zero to sixty so fast you'll need a neck brace," Isidro continued.

"Full racing tuned suspension. You can leave a half a mile of rubbe r in this bitch and it corners like a Porsche."

Fade nodded and walked the length of it again, running a hand over th e elegant tan interior and neatly retracted hand-sewn top.

"All European leather, man. They don't use barbed wire over there, s o it's flawless."

Fade pointed to the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror. "Nic e touch."

"No extra charge," Isidro said and then stuck a key in the trunk , stepping back as it rose slowly on its own. "We had to reinforce th e back end and it made the thing real heavy to open, so we put i n hydraulics."

Fade pointed to a metal tank that took up most of the right side of th e trunk. "What the hell's that?"

"The ejector seat, man."

"You're kidding. You got it to work?"

"Fuck, yeah, we got it to work. But it wasn't easy. Springs were a complete bust. We went with compressed air."

Fade pointed to the machine gun, secured by heavy steel brackets , aiming out another cleverly camouflaged hole, this time over th e license plate. It had a long belt of ammunition that he'd never see n before feeding into it from an artistically crafted spool. "Where'd you get the ammo?"

"Got a friend who builds custom guns and he got us a bunch of blanks.

We were afraid that firing the guns with the car moving was gonna thro w off the handling. Turns out that the front ones ain't a problem bu t the back gun lifts the rear a little bit... Hey, check this shit out."

Isidro took his shoes off and stood on the passenger seat as his me n gathered near the passenger door.

"Get in the driver's seat," he said and Fade climbed in, sinkin g luxuriously into the new upholstery.

"The switch is on the floor above the accelerator. You've got t o really stomp on it."

Fade ran a hand over the hurled wood of the steering wheel. "Now?"

"Go for it."

He looked up into Isidro's slightly nervous face and slammed his foo t onto the switch.

There was a brief whoosh and suddenly the man was in flight, gaining a good five feet before starting to descend. Obviously, this wasn't th e first time they'd tested the seat, because his men were in exactly th e right place to catch him.

Fade realized his mouth was hanging open as he watched the seat slowl y settle back into its original position. There was no more containin g himself. He yanked his shoes off and jumped into the passenger seat.

"The car is fucking perfect! Incredible!" He pointed toward th e switch on the floor. "Come on, Isidro, do me."

The enormous Latino grinned and leaned into the car, careful not to le t his dirty shirt touch the interior, and slammed a hand down on th e switch.

The amount of thrust surprised him, almost buckling his knees an d sending him in an uncontrolled arc that quickly reversed itself an d sent him into an even more uncontrolled descent toward the edge of th e door. Isidro's men were quicker than they looked, though, and manage d to catch him before he damaged either himself or the paint.

"Unbelievable!" Fade said, helping a man he knocked over to his feet.

"It's a car you could die in."

"So you like it?"

"Like it? I love it. You've really outdone yourself, Isidro."

The Latino bowed theatrically. "You're going to tell people about us , then? We could use the publicity. I've been dyin' to get into th e movie business ..."

"Don't even worry about it. If things go the way I think they will , you're going to get more publicity than you can handle."

Fade had been parked in the lot of a seemingly endless shopping mal l for almost an hour, watching cars slowly cruise by and listening to th e police scanner playing over the Caddy's ten thousand-dollar soun d system. He grabbed a beer from a cooler on the floor and held it ou t the door to open it, directing the spray at an old Subaru parked nex t to him. Satisfied that it was no longer dripping, he took a few sip s and then went back to scanning the lot with a small pair of binoculars.

Still nothing.

Another fifteen minutes and boredom started to set in. He turned of f the scanner and slipped in a rap CD thoughtfully provided by Isidro , but that only managed to hold his interest for another five minutes o r so. Finally, he reached for his phone and dialed a number fro m memory.

"Hello?"

"Why don't you quit that stupid job and come on the road with me? We'l l hit a few nice restaurants, go dancing, kill a few people .. . It'll b e good fun."

"Sounds great," Karen Manning responded. "Why don't you drop by m y house and pick me up?"

Fade laughed and grabbed for his binoculars again. A Lexus sedan wit h temporary tags was cruising for a space three rows down. When i t turned, he saw the ask me about my grandchildren bumper sticker on th e back. Nice.

"You reminded me of a joke," he said, picking up the tags he'd jus t removed from his car and making sure the electric screwdriver he'd bought was charged. "How do porcupines mate?"

"I don't know, how?"

"Very carefully."

He put the phone in his shirt pocket and stuck the earpiece in his ear , then jumped out and started walking casually toward the gray-haire d woman easing herself from her Lexus. He slowed slightly and let he r get most of the way to the mall entrance before crouching down betwee n her front bumper and the bumper of the car in front of her. "So how's the five-oh doing finding me? I heard they tracked down my car. Ca n you believe that? I thought for sure that thing would have bee n stolen, painted, and sold to some guy in Nebraska by now. You jus t can't count on people anymore."

"Well, there wasn't much left of it."

"Get anything?"

"I don't know. I assume they're following up with the residents, bu t it's not a neighborhood known for cooperating with the police, and no w that it's come out that it's your car, I'm guessing it's gotten eve n harder. Cop killers are popular in that part of D. C."

Fade frowned slightly as he pulled off the car's tag and began screwin g his own on in its place. "Cop killer" was a label he could hav e happily lived his whole life without.

"You know what, Fade? You've caught me at a good time. I'm sitting i n my house all alone with nothing to do. Why don't you tell me you r story?"

"Oh, you don't want to hear me drone on about myself," Fade said, goin g around to the back of the car and trying to act natural as he bega n removing the rear tag. He doubted the cops would ever come up with th e fact that he'd bought the Caddy, but you could never be too careful.

"Actually, I do."

"Same old story, really. Poor Arab trash from New York joins the nav y because he's too dumb and lazy to go to college. Ends up a SEAL b ecause of an uncontrollable rubber fetish. Runs around the worl d killing people who never did anything to him.. .. What about you?"

"If you have a TV, you already know everything there is to know abou t me. Everyone does." He was surprised that she didn't bother to hid e the bitterness in her voice.

"You're getting so much better at this, Karen. I feel almost compelle d to give you my address and an inventory of my weapons. So I've got t o know, were you really a debutante?"

There was a short pause, as one might expect. "Yes."

"I love that," he said, finishing with the back tag and then leanin g against the car trying to give the impression that he'd finished hi s chores and was now waiting for his mom to return from her errands. "Wh o picked the dress?"

This time she sounded a little irritated. "My mother."

"Nice."

"You know what they say. Once you've seen a girl in a hoop skirt , there isn't much more to "

"But what's the story behind the story, Karen? What's beneath tha t nice tan, the crushing incompetence, and the uncooperative attitude?"

"A lot of unresolved anger. Who's Strand?"

"Long story."

"I told you, I have time."

"Nah. Let's not talk about him. It kind of brings me down."

"Why don't you let me help you, Fade?"

"Help me how?"

She didn't immediately answer and he looked around him before walkin g back to attach the old lady's tags to his car.

"Look, Fade .. . The police are running this investigation wit h blinders on. They want to get you and they don't want to hear anythin g that doesn't relate to getting you."

"But don't you want exactly the same thing? Hell, if you could shoo t me personally, all your problems would be solved."

"I don't want to shoot you, Fade."

"Of course you do. Admit it. Why wouldn't you?"

"Because I don't want to shoot anyone. And even more, I don't want yo u to shoot any more of our people which is what might happen if we end u p in some kind of macho showdown. I believe you when you say you neve r meant to kill a bunch of cops and I assume you don't want to kill an y more. So why not just defuse the situation? Come in. Get a goo d lawyer. Survive this."

"Somehow I don't think anyone is going to be interested in me gettin g my story out and I imagine that giving myself up is going to get m e nothing but executed. I don't picture myself dying strapped to a tabl e with my victims' families watching. Hell, if you invited everybody , you'd have to rent a stadium .. ."

"But if "

"Look, Karen. My situation has certain .. . complications. But I a ppreciate your concern. I really do."

He finished with the tags and stood, trying to stretch the knot tha t had tied itself in his lower back and wondering if the Kmart across th e street sold BB guns.

"Fade "

"Thanks for the chat, Karen. But I gotta run."

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

It took Egan six hours to get to the outskirts of New York and the n another two to wade through the vehicular anarchy that led to th e dangerous-looking neighborhood he'd been directed to.

It seemed to have become hotter since the sun went down and he steppe d out of the car into damp air that smelled of concrete and exhaust. Th e street was empty but there were a few people scattered along th e sidewalk and more sitting on steps leading to the dilapidate d brownstones that crowded the narrow avenue. All were engaged in th e same activity: staring directly at him. He made a move to cross th e road but first turned and ducked back into his car, locking his gu n into the glove compartment. Whether that was smart or suicidal woul d be determined later.

"Watch your car for you, mister?"

Egan slammed his door shut and turned toward the voice. The kid wa s probably thirteen, dressed in a pair of jeans and a clean white T-shir t oddly devoid of logos.

"You don't look that tough."

"Tougher'n you."

Egan laughed and looked around him again, confirming that everyone wa s still staring. He wondered if Fade had gotten the same reaction whe n he'd abandoned his car in D. C. With one significant difference, o f course. Anyone who hadn't been kicked in the head by a horse kne w instinctively that Fade was not to be fucked with. He, on the othe r hand, had settled into the look of exactly what he was a man who live d in the suburbs with a crazy wife and a daughter who was bearing down o n adolescence at the speed of light.

"Good investment, man. Guaranteed."

"Guaranteed, huh. How much?" The darkness and deep brown of the boy's eyes didn't hide the intelligence there. Either the car would b e completely safe or it would be long gone when he returned.

"Twenty bucks."

Egan pulled out his wallet and gave him a fifty.

"Do I look like I carry change, man?"

"Why don't you tell me where Javan Franklin lives and we'll call i t even."

An exasperated lungful of air escaped the boy. "Man, see how my mothe r makes me dress? My life's hard enough without running my mouth."

"I see your point," Egan said, starting toward a wide building at th e end of the block. "If the car's the way I left it when I get back , there's another fifty in it for you."

The young men crowded onto the steps in front of him were all standin g by the time he made it to within twenty feet, and no fewer than thre e were talking urgently into cell phones. At ten feet, about half flowe d down onto the sidewalk and surrounded him.

"What the fuck you doing here, boy? You lost or are you a cop?" on e of them said.

"Neither."

"Then you're one crazy bitch, aren't you?"

"I'm looking for Javan Franklin."

"Who?"

Egan turned toward the young man who was emerging as the mob's spokesman and pointed to the cell phone on his hip. "Why don't yo u give Javan a call and tell him a friend of Salam al Fayed is here t o see him."

The group fell silent, but kept inching toward him, closing to th e point where he wouldn't be able to do much but fall on the ground an d be beaten to death if they decided to attack. No, that wasn't entirel y true. He could probably get a hold of the one in front of him befor e he went down. Of course, there was no real point other than the fac t that he'd die a little happier with one of their broken necks in hi s hands.

Maybe the guy perceived what he was thinking, or maybe he kne w something about Fade, but after a moment, he retreated and was replace d by a wall of flesh barely contained by a Chicago Bulls T-shirt.

Egan couldn't hear what the kid was saying into his phone but when h e hung up he gave a short nod of his head and Egan felt himself bein g slammed facedown onto the sidewalk. He tried to get a grip on one o f the countless arms holding him, almost managing to grab a heavil y ringed finger tangled in his shirt before the fat guy who'd been i n front of him landed both knees in his back.

So that was it, he thought as he struggled to keep breathing beneat h the man's weight. The survivor of numerous missions behind enemy line s and the coordinator of many more was going to die in the Big Apple a t the hands of a bunch of teenagers. The thought of Elise and Kali gav e him a brief burst of strength that he used to get an arm free. Raisin g his head as far as he could off the sidewalk, he scanned the waistband s in front of him. One of these assholes had to have a gun. If he coul d just get to it ... He still hadn't spotted anything more deadly than a belt buckle when it occurred to him that he was more or less intact.

He'd absorbed no punches, kicks, blades, or bullets. The hands on hi m were just sliding up and down, looking for weapons and wires.

"Believe me. We've been through this."

"And we'll go through it again."

Egan was pushed into the wall and frisked again, this time with th e barrel of a .45 pressed behind his ear. "You just stay cool, huh?" th e man searching him suggested.

Finally, the man stepped back, grabbed him by the collar and shoved hi m through a kitchen that looked like it hadn't been used since th e fifties. The back bedroom of the large apartment turned out to be se t up with sofas and leather easy chairs in an arrangement that recalled a royal court. The apparent king, nestled in a red La-Z-Boy, was flanke d by two young men with shoulder holsters.

"I know a cop when I see one and that's a fucking cop," one of the m said.

The man in the chair appeared to be unarmed and was dressed in a whit e linen shirt, cream colored slacks, and bare feet. He nodded and one o f the men standing behind Egan grabbed his wallet and walked it over.

"Cute," the man in the chair said, holding up a picture of Kali.

"Yours?"

Egan nodded.

"So what is it I can do for you, Matt?" the man said, tossing th e wallet back to him.

"Are you Javan Franklin?"

His expression suggested that he wasn't inclined to answer tha t question.

"I want to talk to you about Salam al Fayed."

"Yeah? I'm hearing good things about Sal these days."

The other men in the room, seven in all now, snickered in unison.

"Have you talked to him recently?"

"What the fuck do you care? You said you're not a cop, right?"

Egan shook his head, deciding that the truth was the only thing tha t had even the slightest chance of getting him what he wanted. Frankli n had the look of a serious skeptic.

"I used to work with him. He thinks I set him up and he told me he's going to kill me. I want to find him before he can accomplish that."

Franklin seemed to have been expecting a more complex line of bullshi t and it took a moment for Egan's explanation to process.

"Did you?"

"What?"

"Set him up."

"That's a complicated question."

"Is it?"

"Let's just say that I didn't have his back like I should have."

Franklin nodded silently and looked around the room at his people.

"Well, Matt, it sounds like you've landed yourself in some deep shit.

But I'm not sure why I care if Sal kills you or not."

"Because we have the same interests on this."

"How you figure?"

"We're both friends of his who, unfortunately, need him dead. Me , because he wants to kill me, and you, because you hooked him up wit h the Colombians and I'm guessing with a stack of fake IDs. The longe r this thing drags out, the better the chance the cops are going to ge t around to you. I don't have to tell you that they're not all tha t happy about the deaths of their men. They're looking for somebody t o take the blame."

Franklin chewed his lip for a moment and then waved a hand in the air.

For a moment Egan thought he'd been dismissed, but then the othe r people in the room began filing out. He caught the man who had friske d him by the arm as he went by. "Hey, could you do me a favor? I thin k I've got a shadow. White guy about my age a real dangerous redneck so n of a bitch. Could you take a look around and if you see him, maybe as k him to wait for me? I'd like to talk with him."

Franklin nodded his assent and Egan released the man's arm. When th e door clicked shut and they were alone, he motioned for Egan to sit.

"I've known Sal since we were kids. I wanted him to come work for m e but for some reason, he ran off and joined the navy. Why the fuc k anyone would want to wake up every morning at five a . M. with som e asshole white guy screaming at him is beyond me. But then, he wa s always kinda weird. He never seemed that interested in what was goin g on in the neighborhood. So I was pretty surprised when he showed up o n my doorstep after I haven't seen him for years and asked me fo r work."

"Did you give it to him?"

"Fuck no. I'm not tall enough to ride that ride, man. You go hirin g some badass Navy SEAL and people start getting nervous, you know? The y think maybe you're looking to upset the balance of things."

"But the Colombians aren't as concerned about balance."

"Bunch of fucking freaks. They got more money than they could spend i n ten lifetimes and it's not enough. I mean, what the fuck do you buy i n Colombia? They don't even have paved roads. But, yeah. I put Sal i n touch with them. I understand he did a good job and made some bank.

But as far as I know he "walked away from that a long time ago."

Egan nodded but didn't say anything.

"So what do you want from me, man?"

"He was prepared for something like this to happen, Javan. He had a safe house set up, he has money, he has disguises, and so it stands t o reason that he'd have some aliases. It occurs to me that you'd be th e go-to guy on something like that."

Franklin leaned back in his chair, apparently not happy with where th e conversation was going.

"Look, Javan, Salam did this to himself. It's not your fault. Yo u helped him the best you could and that's left you involved with a ma n of Arab extraction running around killing cops. I mean, the press i s already spouting a bunch of bullshit about possible ties to al Qaeda.

How long before Homeland Security gets involved? I'm willing to be t you have a hell of a lawyer, but he isn't going to do you much good i f you're stuck in a five-by-five cage on the beach in Guantanamo."

Franklin drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair for a few moments , eyes locked on Egan, and then pulled a small pad from his shirt pocket.

After scribbling something on it, he tore the page off, folded it, an d held it out. "I gave him this name, but I don't know what he did wit h it. Seriously."

Egan took it and started for the door.

"Hey, Matt?"

He stopped with his hand on the knob. "Yeah?"

"You better think hard about whether you really want to find Sal.

Because if you do, that little girl's not gonna have a father n o more."

"Over there," his escort said, stopping on the sidewalk and pointing.

"Behind the Dumpster."

Egan hesitated for a moment and then stepped into the garbage-strew n alley, wishing he'd retrieved his gun when he'd passed by his car. On the bright side, though, the kid he'd paid to watch it was stil l sitting patiently on the hood waiting for his other fifty.

He continued forward, moving as far left as the narrow alley woul d allow and focusing on the area behind a large Dumpster that wa s becoming visible as he approached.

Roy Buckner was pretty much like he remembered. His retirement fro m the military hadn't altered his choice of haircuts, but it had put a little weight on him. His slightly hooked nose looked a little les s severe with the extra flesh around it, but his eyes had sunken a bit t o compensate. There was a trickle of blood running from the side of hi s mouth and, judging by his expression, he was more than a little put ou t by the fact that he was being held at bay by four black high schoo l kids with automatic pistols.

"How you doing, Roy?"

He pursed his swelling lips in a way that was meant to suggest that h e was in complete control of the situation. "I'm doing okay, Matt. Ho w about you?"

"Can't complain."

Egan slipped by one of the kids and wrapped an arm around Buckner's shoulders, leading him back down the alley followed closely by his ne w team. "This is the thing, Roy. I don't want you following me. Th e thought that I could get between you and Fade, frankly, scares the shi t out of me."

"Not really my problem, is it, Matt?"

"Well, it is kind of. Because if I ever see you again, I'm going t o shoot you.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Hillel Strand's receptionist seemed to be doing pretty well fo r herself. Even in the dark, the neighborhood had a brand new feel to i t unmarked pavement, fledgling trees held to stakes by pieces of gree n hose, and empty cul de sacs. The houses that had been completed wer e homogenous and sprawling, nearly overwhelming the narrow lots tha t contained them.

Fade strode down the sidewalk, navigating by the light of widely space d streetlamps, and tried to remember the word he'd heard for houses lik e these.

McMansions. That was it. As flawlessly conceived a word as he'd eve r heard.

Predictably, the numbers descended in perfect order and were uniforml y lit. When he arrived at six-nineteen he turned up the right side o f the driveway and slipped through an unlocked gate that led to th e backyard.

From his position in an unfinished home a few doors down, Fade ha d watched Kelly Braith and her husband pack two teenaged boys into a minivan and drive off a few hours ago. He hadn't moved until it wa s dark enough to give him cover and to allow him to confirm that no on e was still home to turn on lights.

The backyard was completely encircled by a wooden fence built more fo r privacy than security. Fade listened for activity in the adjoinin g yards, and hearing none, used his elbow to knock through one of th e glass panels in the back door. After reaching through and flipping th e lock, he took a step back and waited for the beeping of an alar m system. Nothing. The Braiths must have blown the whole wad o n upgrading to the genuine faux-cherry kitchen cabinets.

Fade removed a dead bird from the plastic grocery bag he was carryin g and carefully arranged it on the ground to look like it had broken it s neck flying into the glass, then padded quietly inside. His tim e exploring the similar floor plan of the house down the street paid of f and he was able to make his way to a small den behind the living roo m without turning on any lights.

Slipping into the chair behind a cluttered desk, he reached for a keyboard and watched a flat panel display come to life in an exuberan t family portrait. After a few moments, he found the My Documents folde r and began going through the files contained in it.

Most of them related to Braith's husband's electronics store but ther e were occasional interesting tidbits. The address book contained a fai r amount of personal information on Strand and Egan including birt h dates, addresses, and phone numbers. In fact, Strand was turning fift y in only a few days. Unless, of course, things went in Fade's direction.

While a lot easier than going through land records and a lot mor e sanitary than sifting through garbage, no groundbreaking piece o f information jumped to the screen. Neither man would be out mowing hi s lawn this weekend and he doubted Strand would be throwing himself a bi g birthday bash in a venue with lots of unprotected angles of attack.

What about appointments that might force them out of hiding? He pulle d up the computer's calendar program and did a quick search but, no t surprisingly, Kelly didn't keep her boss's schedule on it. He wa s about to close it when an entry two days in the future caught hi s eye.

Pick up cake.

He froze for a moment and then went back to the address book , confirming Strand's birth date. Two days from now.

A smile spread across his face as a plan began to form in his mind. No t just any plan either. An Albert Einstein of a plan. A Leonardo d a Vinci of a plan. A plan so sublime and elegant that if Mozart wer e still alive, he'd write a symphony to honor it.

The rumble of a garage door opener drifted in from the other side o f the house and Fade started back toward the kitchen, his grin continuin g to widen. As was almost always the case, the logistical details woul d cause all kinds of complications but if he could just focus and thin k them through, it could actually work. What he really needed was Mat t Egan to help him create an airtight plan. But, in the absence of that , he'd count on the luck he always seemed to have when it came to killin g people.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Hillel Strand flipped a page in the police report and used a Magi c Marker to blacken out a paragraph at the top. That fucking moro n Pickering had been so obvious and unbending in his efforts to use Kare n Manning to cover his ass that she'd quit introducing yet anothe r unpredictable element into an already nearly uncontrollable situation.

He grabbed a pen and wrote a note in the margin of the report. Lauren: What's she going to do now? The press? MONITOR!]

Strand flipped another page and put an X through the remainder o f Manning's written report on the call she'd received from al Fayed , making certain that all mention of their contact would be remove d before the file was scanned and e-mailed to Matt Egan. Al Fayed's apparent interest in Manning was the best lead they had that Ega n wasn't involved in. Doug Banes was watching her and if al Fayed eve r decided to try to make physical contact he'd disappear forever with n o concerns about hand-wringing and old loyalties.

It was an avenue the police, in their questionable wisdom, had chose n to more or less ignore. Manning had agreed to a tap on her phone bu t beyond that, they were just trusting her to report anything of interes t that didn't show up on that tap. They continued to rely on th e assumption that al Fayed was on the run and were giving little though t to the possibility that he was lurking around D. C. playing a fuckin g game.

Strand shoved the file aside and looked down at the pile of clothe s folded neatly on the floor. He hadn't left the office in nearly a wee k and it seemed that with every passing hour, his anger and frustratio n were doubling. That this uneducated former enlisted man could affec t his life at all was enough to infuriate him, but the fact that he wa s now imprisoned on this floor, sharing a bathroom with his assistants , living on cold takeout, made him want to kill someone.

He sat quietly, eyes closed, forcing himself to believe that all thi s was going to go away when his private line rang. He snatched up th e phone and pressed it to his ear.

"What?"

"He made me."

Strand remained motionless for a moment and then grabbed the electri c pencil sharpener on his desk and threw it into a wall, sending a clou d of wood dust and shattered plastic across his folded clothes.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Roy? You told me there was n o chance of that! You told me that this was not a problem!"

"Don't know what happened, man. He didn't see me, I guarantee it.

Hell, he's been calling my house leaving messages for me. There mus t be a leak on your end."

Strand jumped up from behind his desk but didn't have anywhere to go.

Egan had been right about Roy Buckner he was an arrogant asshole wh o overestimated his own abilities. But he had a background in th e Special Forces and he hated al Fayed with irrational passion. Tha t gave him certain unique qualifications that had forced Strand to ignor e his drawbacks.

"It was just you and me, Roy. No one else here knows I have yo u following Matt. This was your fuck-up."

"Whatever. No use crying over it. Point is, he's gone."

"You lost him, too?"

"He had a bunch of niggers pull guns on me and then told me if he sa w me again, he'd kill me. Fucker's lucky I didn't drop him righ t there."

"Jesus Christ," Strand said, collapsing back into his chair and tryin g to think. There weren't a lot of options.

"I want you to take over for Doug Banes covering Karen Manning."

"The bitch from SWAT?"

"We have reason to believe al Fayed might try to contact her face t o face."

"I'd like to contact her face to face myself. Have you seen tha t ass?"

"Shut up. Just shut up and get over there. And do you think you coul d manage not to get spotted this time?"

There was a rap on his door and a moment later Lauren poked her hea d in. He waved violently at her to get out, but she stood her ground , jabbing a finger toward his phone.

"What?" he mouthed silently, covering the handset's mouthpiece.

"Mart's on three."

Another violent wave and she retreated through the door, slamming i t behind her.

"Are we done?" he heard Buckner say.

"Get on Karen Manning. Now," Strand replied and switched lines , cutting Buckner off.

"Matt? Are you there?"

"Talked to Roy yet?"

"I just got off the phone with him. He said you threatened him. What's going on?"

"What's going on? You told that psycho to tail me."

"I put a qualified operator on you as backup, Matt.. ."

"Backup. Right. Don't ever do that again, Hillel."

"This isn't just about you, Matt," Strand said, forcing himself t o remain calm. "We're not going to have a lot of chances at thi s thing."

There was a short silence over the phone before Egan spoke again. "I f igure Fade's not going to worry too much about me until you're dead , Hillel. I guess I could just take a leave of absence until then ..

."

"Is that some kind of threat?"

"Take it any way you want."

Strand's jaw tightened, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Fo r now, Egan had him by the balls.

"Matt, I..."

There was a quiet click and the line went dead.

"Fuck!" He pressed a button on his phone, opening the intercom t o Lauren's office. "Get in here and bring Bill with you."

By the time they settled into the chairs in front of his desk, Stran d had regained enough of his composure to force his voice into a monoton e that was a reasonable facsimile of calm.

"I just spoke with Matt and I'm not quite sure what's happening wit h him. I don't think he's coming in anymore and I have a feeling he's not going back to the hotel. It seems like the further we get int o this, the more Matt wants to go it on his own. There's no reason fo r him to avoid us unless he's starting to have second thoughts about wha t needs to be done. And if that's the case, I think we have to conside r the possibility that he's going to get himself killed out of som e misguided sense of loyalty to al Fayed. Or he's going to cause us t o miss an opportunity to neutralize a very dangerous man whose only goa l in life is to kill us .. ." He let his voice trail off for a moment.

"Thoughts?"

"I talked to him just last night," Fraiser said. "He sounded fine."

Fraiser didn't know anything about Roy Buckner and he was getting th e same sanitized files as Egan. At this point, there was no reason fo r him to know that Egan wasn't being given the whole story.

"What did he get from the drug dealer, Bill?"

"He said not much, but he didn't give any details. He said he wa s still working on it."

"Can we get to him?"

"Javan Franklin? I don't know. He's basically living in a fortres s and unless we want to get the police involved, I'm not sure what we ca n do to strong-arm him .. ."

Strand turned and stared out the window at the blanket of lights tha t D. C. became at night. "How are we going to find Matt?"

There was a long silence, eventually broken by Lauren. "We should sen d someone to the hotel to make sure it's clean and see if he lef t anything pointing to what he was going to do."

Strand nodded, but didn't look back. "Get Steve Despain on it."

"Beyond that, I'm not sure. Track his ATM and credit cards? He'l l have anticipated that."

"What about his wife?"

"They're really close," Fraiser said. "But I doubt that's going to d o much good. He's staying away from her because he thinks al Fayed woul d try to acquire him there."

Strand took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We need to thin k harder."

"He'll have to come back to us eventually," Lauren said. "If we sto p talking to him he's going to have a hard time analyzing intelligenc e and he isn't going to have any idea what the police are doing."

Strand didn't respond. It was a difficult question. Without Egan, th e entire machine ground to a halt.

"We're not going to cut him off," Strand said, turning back towar d them. "But I'm going to tell you this again. He gets absolutel y nothing that doesn't go through me first. Do you understand?"

Chapter Thirty.

It was definitely the address Franklin had given him, but it didn't look right an aging rancher in a middle-class neighborhood filled wit h sensible cars and golf carts.

Egan slowed and turned into the driveway, admiring a large family o f lawn gnomes guarding a shrub by the door. He sat there for a fe w seconds, seriously considering backing up and driving out of there.

Franklin had obviously fucked him. No big surprise it had never bee n anything more than a long shot.

Finally, he made a deal with himself. He'd look over the yard one mor e time and if there was even a hint of a plastic pink flamingo, he'd ge t the hell out of there. If not, he'd knock on the door.

It wasn't exactly a thorough search, but there seemed to be n o representations of birds of any color at all so Egan climbed from th e car and walked along a gravel path to the front door.

The man who answered his knock made Egan even more certain that he'd been screwed. He was about fifty, with a ponytail made up of what fe w strands of hair he had left and a Hawaiian shirt that arced gracefull y over the gut hiding the top of his cutoff khakis. All that was missin g was an umbrella drink in a pineapple husk and the cheerful strains o f Jimmy Buffett.

"I'm looking for an ID," Egan said with a complete lack o f enthusiasm.

To his surprise, there was a flash of understanding in the man's eye s before he managed to cloak his expression.

"I think you got the wrong place. Who are you looking for?"

Egan glanced over his shoulder, and seeing no one on the street, shove d the man back before slipping inside.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing? Get out of here befor e I call the cops!"

"I need information on Salam al Fayed," Egan said, closing the doo r behind him. There were no lights on in the house, leaving it in a dee p gloom that smelled of cigarettes and pot.

"Never heard of him," the man said reflexively.

"Seems kind of unlikely since he's been on about every news program i n the country."

The man, whose name he hadn't been given, took a step backward. "I m ean, I don't know anything about him .. . You know what I meant! Wh o are you? A cop? Do you have a warrant?"

"I don't work for the police. And I could care less about you or wha t you do for money. But you made some IDs for al Fayed a while back an d I need copies of them. So why don't you get on your computer and prin t them out for me. Then I'll leave and you'll never have to think abou t me again."

"I don't know what you're talking about with all this ID shit, man. Yo u got the wrong guy. Now get out of here before I call the police." He made a move toward a phone sitting on a shelf next to a n expensive-looking stereo system but Egan cut him off.

"Look .. . What's your name?"

"Syd."

"Syd. I'm not a bad guy but I really need this information and I'm going to do what I have to to get it. So why don't we skip th e unpleasant part and get to the payoff?"

"My neighbors are only about ten feet away," the man warned. "If I s tart yelling, they'll be on to 911 in half a second."

"Come on, Syd. Be reasonable here."

"On the count of three, I'm gonna yell. I swear I am. One .. . two ..

."

Egan swung his foot up between the man's legs hard enough that for a moment he actually thought he might have hurt his ankle. Pulling hi s foot back, he rolled it in circles, testing it as the man grabbed hi s crotch and let out a low squeal that his neighbors wouldn't hear n o matter how close they were. Egan gave him a little shove, tipping hi m over onto the carpet, and then pulled a full rack of CDs down on top o f him. With his ankle feeling more or less normal again, he swung hi s foot back to deliver a moderately hard kick to the man's ribs when h e saw his wife staring up at him. Her second record was lying on th e carpet.

"Hey," Egan said, leaning over and slapping the man across the face.

"Syd! You all right? Can you hear me?"

He couldn't talk yet, but managed to nod.

"I hate this kind of thing. Really. And it makes it that much wors e when it's completely unnecessary. All I'm asking for is copies of th e stuff you did for al Fayed. I swear to you that the cops will neve r hear about any of this from me ..."

"I don't have it," the man managed to get out. He rolled on his back , still desperately clutching at his crotch. The color of his face mad e Egan wonder if he was about to have a stroke. That's all he needed.

"Why would I keep records? They'd .. . they'd just incriminate me."

"Oh, please .. . I'm not an idiot, Syd. You can buy damn nea r unbreakable encryption for less than a cup of coffee and save thing s anonymously on servers all over the world. No, I'm guessing you've go t all kinds of records. I mean, you never know when the cops are goin g to show up and you're going to need to deal, right?"

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

Egan grabbed a sofa pillow that looked like a skinned poodle and lai d it on the man's knee, then pulled out his pistol and pressed the barre l against it.

"Fuck! Are you crazy?"

"No," Egan said. "I'm desperate."

If i Chapter Thirty-One.

Fade was quickly gaining a grudging respect for those millions o f people who made their living working with computers. He'd once spen t two completely motionless days nose-deep in a muddy river waiting for a particular Cambodian gentleman to make the mistake of walking to o close. At the time, he'd considered it tough duty, but compared to th e physical and mental torture of hunching over his new laptop hour afte r hour, it had been nothing. He felt like he had a knife between hi s shoulder blades and the inactivity was driving him insane. Or, in th e eyes of the press and police, more insane than he already was.

Worse, the increasingly familiar deadened tingling in his foot was mor e acute than it had ever been before. The cramping in his lower bac k seemed to be pressing his pet bullet deeper into his spine. What h e needed was an assistant. Maybe he should take out a want ad in th e Post. Something like "Exciting entry level position in the growin g field of assassination. Almost certain potential for advancement."

Fade grinned as he stood unsteadily and went to check the pot o f Lipton's noodles boiling over a hot plate next to the sink. Floatin g on top was a gray layer of lead paint and asbestos that was constantl y drizzling from the ancient ceiling. In hindsight, he probably shoul d have sprung for a slightly nicer safe house, but who knew he'd reall y need it? The plan was to give him a place to pick up his IDs, cash , and weapons, and then get the hell out of Dodge. Long-term comfor t hadn't been on his mind.

He switched on the tiny black and white television sitting next to hi m and flipped through the channels, relieved to find that the soaps ha d returned and that for the time being at least, there was no mention o f him at all. The last story he'd seen, on the eleven o'clock news th e night before, reported that Karen had quit the force and that th e police were pursuing "significant leads" in their search for him. He was tempted to call her and find out what was going on, but instea d skimmed the poisonous muck off his pasta and carried the pan over t o his makeshift workstation.

It took another two hours of hard work, but he finally finishe d plotting phonebook addresses against his computer's mapping software , identifying every bakery between Kelly Braith's house and Homelan d Security's headquarters. The hope here was that Braith liked her bos s enough not to just pick him up a grocery store cake but not so muc h that she'd use some boutique bakery miles out of her way. If tha t assumption was wrong, it was going to be a very long day.

He picked up the new satellite phone he'd bought that morning an d started dialing.

By the time he was onto his twentieth bakery, he had his headset on an d was doing pull-ups from a doorjamb that looked like it was going t o separate from the wall any moment. The activity was bringing th e feeling back into his right foot, as it always did, but not as quickl y as it had in the past. Apparently, all this excitement wasn't good fo r his delicate constitution.

"Wild Flour, can I help you?"

"Yeah. A friend of mine, Kelly Braith, asked me to pick up a cak e there for her tomorrow and I was wondering if I could come by a littl e early."

"What's the name again?"

"B-R-A-I-T-H." He dropped off the doorjamb and began jogging aroun d the Cadillac.

"Uh, right. Here it is .. ."

He stopped short, barely avoiding ramming his shin into the bac k bumper. "What did you say?"

"I've got it right here. Carrot cake. Happy Birthday Hillel , right?"

"That's the one."

"I've got this down for a seven thirty pickup. We open at seven, s o you could come in then."

"Great, thanks. And what time do you close tonight?"

"Five thirty, but it won't be ready then. I'll make it fresh in th e morning."

Fade pumped a fist in the air and danced as much of a solo tango a s space would allow. "Of course you will. Thanks. I'll see yo u soon."

The role luck played in killing people couldn't be overestimate d probably contributing about the same as talent and training when th e moment came. Fade, while not exactly on speaking terms with Fat e lately, had always been Death's favorite son. Apparently, their lon g separation hadn't changed that. The bakery was perfect. A tin y storefront on a quiet street, surrounded by other small shops tha t didn't start opening until ten.

He'd arrived at three a . M." peeking in the dark windows at the fron t and then pulling around to the empty parking lot in back. Stil l cramped from sitting for so long, he ended up lying across the bac k seat of the Caddy watching what stars could defeat the weak securit y light at the far end of the lot. He gauged time by their movemen t across the sky, occasionally looking at his watch to check hi s accuracy.

At four a. M. it was still dead quiet, despite what those Dunkin' Donut s commercials said. He pulled his jacket over him and closed his eyes , allowing himself to drift a bit.

The sound of a motor and the flash of headlights sweeping over the ca r jerked him awake and he slid to the floor, enveloping himself in th e deep shadow cast by the front seats. The motor and lights died and h e heard a car door open and then close. Footsteps started, paused, an d then began coming his way. He held his breath and watched as a woma n stopped a few feet away, moving her gaze slowly over the car.

"Nice," she said aloud and then turned and disappeared from sight.

Clearly a woman of breeding and taste.

He waited to hear the jingling of keys before easing himself into a sitting position and peering through the front windshield. The woma n seemed absorbed by the lock on the bakery's rear door, so he sli d silently to the pavement and padded up behind her.

He was only a few feet away when the door opened. Rushing forward, h e clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her inside before kicking th e door shut behind them.

She struggled admirably, but then froze when he pressed the barrel o f his pistol against her cheek.

"If you scream, I'm going to shoot you."

Her back was pushed against his chest and he could feel her tremblin g as he eased his hand off her mouth. The fact that she was young an d reasonably fit was kind of a relief. He'd been afraid she was going t o be some seventy-year-old woman with arteries clogged by years of pastr y sampling. Giving somebody's grandmother a heart attack wasn't in hi s plan.

"I ... I take the money to the bank after we close at night. I've onl y got .. ."

"I'm not here for money."

That had been the wrong thing to say. A nearly inaudible squeak cam e from her throat and her trembling turned to outright shaking.

"No, no. Relax. I'm not here for that either. Start breathing again , please."

She did and he backed away, keeping his gun pointed at her face. Sh e was actually kind of cute. Dark, shoulder-length hair and big , beautiful eyes that were almost black. Maybe she had a thing fo r murderous sociopaths? Hell, he was nearly famous.

"What do you want then?" she managed to get out, glancing over at a magnetic strip containing a few rather nasty looking knives. Fad e couldn't help smiling.

"I just want you to bake me a cake. Carrot, if it's not too muc h trouble."

"You could have just called."

"Well, I have some special ingredients that I want you to work with."

He pulled a couple of glass vials from his pocket and put them on th e counter.

"What .. . what are they?"

It was a good question. He honestly didn't know exactly. His sho p ping spree earlier that night predictably had begun in the rat poiso n aisle. He'd been in a fairly dark mood at the time. After fondlin g the box for a few minutes, reading the wonderfully sadistic soundin g list of ingredients on the back, he'd finally been forced to return i t to its shelf. Simple and effective, yes. But impossible. There wa s just no way to control who was going to sample Strand's birthda y cake.

So, what then? There was always LSD, which definitely blew the top of f the fun meter. Unfortunately, he had no idea where to get it, beyond a Grateful Dead concert, and Jerry Garcia was dead.

The possibility of Ex-Lax was hard to ignore and had a really appealin g "fuck you" quality to it. But it didn't really get him anywhere.

A few hours later, in an all-night drug store devoid of customers, a young pharmacist had become very helpful when Fade had put a gun in hi s ear, suggesting a concoction that was guaranteed to create a trul y obscene combination of explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting.

After that, a new and improved plan had begun to evolve.

"What are they?" the woman repeated, examining the vials in he r peripheral vision but never taking her eyes off Fade.

"What's the difference?"

"You want me to poison someone. I won't do it."

Fade frowned deeply and folded his arms across his chest, tapping th e trigger of his pistol impatiently. Ninety-nine percent of humanity wa s a complete waste of skin and he gets a woman with principles.

"Look," he said finally. "I don't mean to nitpick here, but I have a gun and you don't."

Karen Manning forced herself to stop pacing and instead stood in th e middle of the room taking slow, deep breaths and staring at the doo r only a few feet away. If she dove for it now, she could sprint dow n the hall, knock over a security guard or two, and be free in less tha n ten seconds.

She'd finally swallowed what little pride she had left and called he r father on the way home from throwing her badge at Pickering. He'd tol d her to turn around and come directly to his office. By the time sh e arrived, there were three people from one of the world's top publi c relations firms sitting in a conference and he was on the phone wit h the governor of Virginia. Apparently, he'd already spent over a hundred thousand dollars laying the groundwork for the day she cam e crawling back to Daddy. How embarrassing.

And now, here she was in the green room of The O'Reilly Factor, waitin g to be interviewed by one of the country's most vicious and highes t rated talk show hosts. Despite hours of intensive coaching by her ne w PR team and a warm-up interview on a local news show that had bee n thoroughly analyzed by a twenty-person focus group, she didn't fee l ready.

But ready or not, here she was. And when it was over, the famil y Learjet would immediately whisk her to a meeting with a top New Yor k law firm to see if a defamation suit against the department wa s feasible. Her father promised her that it was only a threat, but sh e knew that she was going to have to keep a close eye on him. He had a way of getting carried away when there was blood in the water.

Her cell phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket, hoping it wa s someone with a few last-minute words of wisdom. When she saw th e incoming number, she froze. This wasn't what she needed right now. Sh e needed to focus on what was ahead of her, not what was behind her.

Right?

"Hello, Fade," she said, putting the phone to her ear.

"I saw you on TV. Why didn't you tell me you'd quit? The dress was a little weird, though. You let your mom pick that one out, too?"

"The focus group loved it. Apparently it exuded competence withou t being overbearing."

"Focus group? Very smart, Karen. The media can hurt you, but it ca n also help you if you play your cards right."

"You know what would really help me?"

"Wait, don't tell me .. ."

"If you turned yourself in."

"I'm a little busy right now. Actually, I got a job."

"A job?"

"Yeah. I'm working in a bakery. Though, to be honest, I don't thin k it's going to be a long-term thing. Tell you what, give me a littl e more time and if you want, I'll let you kill me."

"How many times do I have to tell you " Karen got out before sh e realized she was shouting. "How many times do I have to tell you tha t I don't want to kill you."

"I know. You "

Fade suddenly went silent and she heard a quiet jingle over the phone.

Like the bell stores hung on their doors.

"Oops. It looks like I've got a customer .. ."

"A customer? Fade, what are you "

"Sorry. Gotta run."

The line went dead and she found herself staring dumbly down at th e phone. Why did she actually believe he was working in a bakery? An d why was he calling her? And who the hell was he? She shoved the phon e back in her pocket and started her deep breathing exercises again , trying unsuccessfully to put him out of her mind.

Who was he? The strangest mass murderer she'd ever met that's who.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

While Egan's prior hotel room had been no prize, this one gave th e impression that it wasn't meant to be used for more than an hour at a time. In light of the fact that Strand was almost certainly pullin g out the stops to find him, he'd bypassed the hotel chains and settle d in an independent that happily accepted cash and false names, and tha t had no computer link to the outside world. Egan pulled a beer from a trash can full of ice, and flopped down on the bed. He'd considere d buying a new chalkboard, but what was the point? He'd alread y exhausted most of the possibilities for finding Fade. At this point a sticky note would probably do.

On the brighter side, Syd had become much more cooperative with a gu n barrel pressed against his knee, and Egan now had a manila envelop e filled with color copies of all Fade's phony driver's licenses an d passports. Thank God Syd was a complete coward Egan doubted he woul d have been able to pull the trigger. He wasn't sure, though. And tha t uncertainty bothered him.

He twisted the top off his beer and took a long pull. No poin t dwelling on obscure moral conundrums when he hadn't yet been able t o answer the obvious ones. Getting the IDs was a major step in the righ t direction and brought the prospect of actually finding Fade int o sharper focus. What was he going to do if he did? Would Fade be read y to talk or would he just start shooting? And, in the unlikely even t that he missed, would Egan shoot back?

The sad truth was that that was the easy scenario. A more likely on e would be that he'd figure out a way to creep up behind Fade and giv e himself the chance to safely shoot his old friend in the back. Tha t left him with two choices: yell something stupid like "Freeze!" an d give Fade a chance or just pull the trigger and take that chanc e away.

After fifteen minutes of concentrating on the problem, he'd gotte n nowhere. Maybe it was better that way. Worry about it when and if th e time came.

He picked up his new phone and dialed, letting himself sink farthe r into the formless pillows propped beneath his head.

"Hello?"

"I heard a thing on the radio today about the new Madonna record an d they didn't even mention you."

Elise laughed. "Thank God."

"When are the people who actually write the songs going to get a littl e respect?"

"Just not the way of the world, honey. Actually, I spoke to her, uh , people yesterday and they're already talking about me doing another on e for her next record. Apparently she really likes it."

Normally, he would have told her only to do it if she wanted but unde r the circumstances .. .

"It's probably not a bad little side business to get into, Elise."

"Yeah, but you know how I like to play the artistic martyr. Honestly , though, it's pretty easy money. I mean, you loop a beat that make s people want to shake their butts around, throw in a catchy hook, laye r on an ethereal, sexy vocal to give it that Euro feel she's going for , and then repeat for five minutes."

"And deposit the check," he reminded her.

"Of course. How could I forget the best part?"

He took another sip from his beer and wondered how long they'd have t o be together for him to actually believe that she'd married him.

Sometimes the entire idea that she was his wife terrified him. Whe n she went drinking with the guys from Pearl Jam, or REM." or whoever , he just sent her off with a stomach full of pasta and the admonition t o call him if she drank too much to drive. What a load of crap. Thos e guys were rich and famous and talented, and actually understood he r music. If she ever found out he felt that way, she'd undoubtedly laug h for days. But how could he help it?

"You're not unhappy, are you?" he heard himself say.

"What do you mean? About the Madonna thing?"

"No. I mean in general. About living in the suburbs. About owning a minivan."

"What's going on with you lately, Matt? Of course not. I wouldn't change anything. Not a single thing. Though you've got to admit tha t it's kind of funny that I drive a minivan."

"You said you could fit Kali's car seat and a full set of drums," h e reminded her.

"I know what I said. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah. Fine."

There was a short silence and when she spoke again she sounded a littl e hesitant. "What about you? You're not unhappy, are you?"

"Me? Why would I be?"

"I don't know. Because everybody you work with thinks your wife's a nut? You never mentioned it, but I'm guessing that you didn't miss th e fact that my songs have been specifically mentioned in governmen t hearings on rock lyrics. I bet that's a hot topic of conversatio n around the Homeland Security water cooler."

Egan examined a stain on the ceiling that looked like an elephant.

"That's just politicians trying to keep their jobs. The more afrai d they can make people, the easier it is for them to get re-elected."

He heard her let out a long breath. "They're doing a good job."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. When I was young, everything was so black and white. I f elt so comfortable in my .. . would you call it morality? Philosophy?

I was so confident that I was different. But maybe I was just young.

And now I'm not anymore."

"You just turned thirty-one, Elise. It's not time for the nursing hom e yet."

"You know what I mean. I was watching the news yesterday and it was s o horrible. What if that maniac running around killing women go t Kali? Or what if some Arab who thinks God speaks only to him blew he r up? Or what if some kid who isn't getting enough attention at hom e comes into her school someday and shoots her for no reason?"

"The media's no different than the government, Elise. Everyone has th e impression that America is becoming the most dangerous place in th e world, but it isn't. In some ways, it's actually getting safer. Bu t those twenty-four-hour news stations have to keep people glued to thei r sets so they can sell Pampers or SUVs or whatever. People who thin k they're in danger don't channel surf."

"I know. It's just getting to me lately .. ."

Egan nodded as best the pillow half wrapped around his head woul d allow. "Parenthood tends to make you think in a whole other way."

"I guess. Have you been watching that story about the guy who kille d all those policemen?"

Egan tensed. Fade was gone from his life before he'd met Elise and fo r obvious reasons, Egan had never spoken of him.

"They say he was a Navy SEAL," she continued. "Did you know him?"

"I was in the army, Elise. How's Kali?"

Surprisingly, she let him get away with evading the question.

"She's got a cold and she's convinced that I don't care but if Dadd y were here he'd make it all better. I finally got her to sleep a hal f an hour ago. She's going to be disappointed she missed you."

"Tell her I promise I'll catch her next time. I just haven't had a minute, you know? In fact, I've got to run .. ."

"Wait! You didn't tell me how you're doing. Or when you're going t o be home."

"Okay, and I don't know. Soon."

"Have you been getting out at all? New York's a great town."

"Not really."

"Owl"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. I'm trying to solder this stupid effects board bac k together again. I've got a show in DC. in a few days."

"Right. I totally forgot. Good luck if I don't talk to you .. ."

Egan polished off his beer while he went through the identities tha t had been created for Fade and poked around the Internet searching fo r the various names. In total there were six, with each including a driver's license, a birth certificate, a social security card, and a passport. Two looked just like him and therefore wouldn't be terribl y practical with his face all over the TV. The third showed him with a long, shaggy beard looking a little too Arab to be practical in a post-9/11 world. Number four was the bespectacled preppy persona th e guy who'd sold him the Cadillac had described. And the last two ha d kind of a blond gay intellectual feel. Egan was prepared to bet goo d money that he was using one of those his own mother wouldn't hav e recognized him.

The phone line he had his laptop plugged into wasn't exactly fast, bu t it had been adequate to pull credit reports on the various identitie s and do a brief background check on each. Not surprisingly, ther e wasn't much there. The addresses were all the same P. O. box i n Manassas a place he doubted Fade would visit again and there were n o entries from power or mortgage companies that might hint at th e location of the place he'd taken Karen Manning.

Each persona had two credit cards, but none seemed to have ever bee n used. Egan pulled up each issuer's Web site and found that Fade neve r signed up for Internet access to his accounts, making it possible fo r him to put in his own passwords so he could monitor credit card usag e in close to real time. Beyond that, there wasn't much he could do wit h the information.

He grabbed his phone and dialed Billy Fraiser's cell number, listenin g to it ring as he twisted the top off another beer.

"Hi, honey. Hang on and let me go into my office."

Egan's eyebrows rose. "No problem, sweetie."

He heard a door close and then. "Matt! What the hell's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hillel's saying that you've pretty much lost it that you're ducking u s and going it on your own."

"What's he doing about it?"

No answer.

"Listen to my voice, Billy. Do I sound like I've come unglued? Bu t I'll tell you that there's shit going on behind my back and I'm no t happy about it. In the position I'm in, things I don't know damn wel l can kill me."

No answer again, but Egan decided not to fill the silence. Afte r another ten seconds Fraiser spoke again.

"I know what you think of me, Matt. You think I'm just anothe r government slicky-boy. A young Hillel Strand."

"No, I don "

"Sure you do. And hey, I'm not bitching. I play the game, and I'm pretty good at it. But there's one big difference between me an d Hillel: I know the game's a load of crap."

"I'm not sure what that means," Egan said.

"It means that when the shit hits the fan I'm smart enough to know tha t I want you watching my back. Not Hillel."

Egan propped himself up against the long mirror that passed for a headboard, unsure whether or not to believe what he was hearing.

"If that's true, then start talking."

Egan imagined Fraiser pacing back and forth through his office , twirling that chewed-up pen he liked to play with when he was nervous.

What he couldn't conjure an image of, though, was Strand. Was h e sitting in his office, blissfully ignorant, or was he sitting o n Fraiser's desk, listening?

"Hillel's got Lauren looking for you, but she's pretty much just goin g through the motions. She figures if you don't want to be found, she's not going to find you. The cops are spinning their wheels stil l assuming Fade's trying to get out of the country. Which brings us t o the question of whether we're doing ourselves any favors by holding ou t on them."

"I don't know," Egan said. "But the truth is that beyond the APB tha t we've already got out, they can't really do anything we're not doin g already. Besides, if they do manage to corner Fade, they're going t o lose more guys. As things are now, he isn't a danger to anyone but m e and Hillel. Though I know you don't believe that. What else?"

"Everything that's come to you is going through Strand first."

"What's he keeping from me?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing. If he is censoring your information , I'd be the last person he'd tell."

"You're probably right. Is that it?"

" "Fraid so."

"Okay. Call me if you get anything else. Let me give you a new numbe r you can reach me on .. ."

"Satellite phone," Fraiser said. "Lauren showed me the charge on you r Visa."

"I assumed Strand was watching my cell."

"You assumed right."

He read off the number and was about to hang up, but then changed hi s mind. "Oh, and Billy?"

"Yeah?"

"Try to relax, okay? I don't believe for a second that Fade is goin g to try to hurt you or Lauren, but if he does, it'll be over my dea d body. I mean that."

"I know. That's why we're talking."

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Hillel Strand forced himself to smile as an ofF-key rendition of "Happ y Birthday" filled the OSPA reception area. Other than Bill and Lauren , no one else in the office knew what was going on though certainly the y knew something was happening. With Egan nowhere to be found and Stran d sleeping in the office with the assistants, it was reasonable to expec t that there would be a fair amount of speculation. Just as a reminder , he'd made a brief speech that morning about the importance o f discretion at Homeland Security and the rather draconian penalties tha t would be suffered by anyone who let something slip.

Threats could only go so far, though. It was critical to maintain a s much of an illusion of normalcy as possible. He joined in the applaus e as Kelly Braith marched out of the copy room holding a large cak e covered in candles.

Karen Manning had been on The O'Reilly Factor the night before and th e memory of her very convincing performance was causing a tightness i n his chest that actually made it difficult for him to take a breath dee p enough to blow out the candles. While she had focused on the detail s of her encounter with al Fayed and the circumstances of he r resignation, there was no denying that this story's foothold in th e national media had become just a bit more solid. Until last night, a l Fayed's complete disappearance and the lack of progress in the polic e investigation had left the press treating the is sue as more a dramati c one-off event than an ongoing story. Combine that with the existenc e of the infinitely more lurid Collector case and coverage was beginnin g to dissipate. Manning had the power to reverse that critical trend , though. An attractive woman in a bitter fight to clear her name, a hint of sexual politics, and a heavily connected father who wa s apparently willing to spend any amount necessary to make sure hi s daughter's face was everywhere. It would only take one goddam n reporter looking for a new angle to cause this thing to implode. A l ittle too much digging into al Fayed's past, a lucky inquiry into th e source of the police's suspicions.. . The only thing that could ensur e his safety was a satisfying and final end to the story. And the onl y thing that could do that was al Fayed's corpse.

To his surprise, he managed to get all the candles out. He put on e hand up to silence the muted cheering and accepted a large slice o f cake with the other. "I'm really feeling it this year. I'm no w officially too old for the workload that's been dumped on us in th e past couple of weeks. I want to say that I appreciate everybody's support, particularly the hard work Lauren and Bill have done helpin g me dig myself out, and Matt, who couldn't be here, for all the footwor k he's been doing. Hopefully, we'll get it all wrapped up before I los e my golf swing."

Polite laughter filled the room as he walked over to Kelly's desk an d picked up a fork. "Now, everybody grab some cake. It looks great."

"Matt?" Strand said as Lauren closed the door to his office behin d her.

"Nothing. He made a large withdrawal from his savings account befor e you talked to him and I'm guessing he's using that money "

"I'm not asking you to guess!" he shouted.

She blinked hard and pushed away the damp hair that was stuck to he r cheek. Strand jerked a finger toward the chair in front of his desk , swallowing hard. Stress had been taking its toll on his stomach fo r days but over the last hour it had taken a serious turn for the worse.

The constant burning had been replaced by a weak, quivering sensatio n occasionally broken by increasingly severe cramps.

Lauren sat, a little unsteadily, and continued. "We assume he's staying in an independent hotel somewhere in the area, but with ou r limited re it. s ources and the fact that we have to keep a low profile, our ability ..

." Her voice trailed off for a moment. "Our ability to look into the m is limited. We could put an APB out on his car, like we did with a l Fayed, but then we might end up having to explain why a high leve l employee of Ho "

She suddenly jumped from her chair, holding a hand tightly over he r mouth and ran for the door. Strand watched her claw at the knob for a moment and then disappear in the direction of the bathroom as his ow n stomach reacted to the excitement by rolling dangerously. He took a few breaths and pressed his forehead against the cool wood of his desk.

A bead of sweat gathered on his nose and then fell, leaving a dark spo t on the carpet.

"Hillel?"

His damp forehead made a sucking sound as he peeled it from the des k and tried to focus on the sagging outline of Kelly Braith proppe d against his doorjamb. The motion, slow as it was, prompted anothe r cramp and he clenched his teeth tightly waiting for it to pass.

"There's a ... a call for you on two," she managed to get out.

He wanted to tell her to take a message but found he couldn't speak. He shook his head instead.

"It's Salam al Fayed," she said as though the name meant nothing t o her. "He said you'd want "

And then she was gone. Running, like Lauren had, toward th e bathroom.

What the hell was going on? Was the cake bad? What in a cake could g o bad? He glanced over at the phone and saw the red light on i t flashing. His cramp had subsided enough that he thought he coul d speak, but he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Why was al Fayed calling? What did he want? To make more threats? Ha d he finally figured out that Strand wasn't going to expose himself an d wanted to talk deal? Finally, he picked up the phone.

"Yes?"

"Hillel! How you feeling?"

"What?"

"I poisoned your cake, dumbass. You're just too easy. I mean, thi s wasn't even a challenge. Anyway, I guess this is the last time we'l l be talking. Happy birthday."

"Billy, calm down! I can't understand a word you're saying. Hold on."

Matt Egan eased the car over to the curb and turned off the motor. "No w what the hell are you going on about?"

"The son of a bitch poisoned it! We're completely screwed! Everyon e in the office but me. I didn't eat any. Fuck! You said he wouldn't touch us!"

"Billy? Listen to me. Calm down. Now let's pretend for a second tha t I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Start from th e beginning."

"Hillel's cake," Billy said, managing to speak a little more slowl y this time. "It was his birthday and the office had a party for him. I b lew it off, 'cause I'm with you, you know? I figured fuck him."

"The point," Egan said. "Get to the point."

"Kelly got him a cake. Everyone ate some but me and they all starte d getting really sick. Then al Fayed called and told Hillel he'd poisoned it. Shit. You can't believe what it was like! They're al l dead, man. They're all dead."

Egan sat motionless, looking through his windshield at people i n business suits hurrying along the sidewalk to escape the soft rain tha t had begun to fall. This didn't make sense.

"Back up for a second, Billy. You're telling me everyone's dead? Righ t now, you're standing knee deep in corpses."

"No, the paramedics took them away. They were throwing up all over th e place, convulsing ... By now, they've gotta be dead. Al Fayed sai d they would be."

Egan sat silently for a few seconds and then a smile began to sprea d across his face. Fade was still quite the little prankster. Then hi s smile disappeared.

"Shit! Billy, listen to me very carefully. Call the ambulances tha t picked them up and tell them to divert to another ho " He fel l silent.

"What? Matt? Are you still there?"

He didn't answer immediately. Maybe he'd reacted a little too hastily.

This could be the opportunity he'd been waiting for.

"What hospital?"

"Huh?"

"What hospital, Billy? What hospital are they being taken to?"

Chapter Thirty-Four.

"Three tens," Fade said, laying his cards down on the small table. Th e man next to him chewed on the unlit cigarette in his mouth and stare d at his hand with an intensity that suggested he was trying to will i t to change. His wife and son had been in a car accident less than a n hour ago and while it looked like they were both going to survive , there was some question as to whether the boy would keep his pitchin g arm.

He'd agreed to a nickel and dime game of poker to try to keep the man's mind occupied, though it didn't seem to be working. His lack o f concentration had left Fade five dollars richer.

"Looks like you're taking me to the cleaners," the man said as h e shuffled and dealt.

Fade examined his hand halfheartedly, focusing most of his attention o n the doctors and nurses moving around behind the long counter to hi s left. "I'll take "

"Those poisoning victims are two minutes out," he heard one of th e nurses say.

"How many?" someone else asked.

"Seven. All from the same source."

The man waved a hand in front of Fade's face. "You all right? Do yo u need cards?"

"Yeah. Give me three. And this is going to have to be my last hand , so I think I'll just bet everything."

Fade pushed his pile of change to the center of the table and the n slapped down a pair of deuces. Predictably, he lost.

"Looks like your luck might be changing," he said, standing and shakin g the man's hand. "I hope things work out."

By the time Fade came around the corner and started down the hallway , the large double doors at the end were propped open, displaying a grou p of men pulling a gurney from an ambulance. He watched as they passe d it off to a couple of orderlies and ducked back into the vehicle fo r victim number two.

Doctors and nurses had already surrounded the first gurney by the tim e it passed through the doors and Fade listened to the paramedics giv e their report while the patient, partially obscured by a vomit-soake d sheet, writhed weakly.

Being an emergency room doctor wouldn't have been a bad gig, Fad e mused. It had both intellectual and physical components, and it seeme d like it would provide the same mind-clearing intensity as combat. Mayb e he should have studied a little harder in school and gone this route.

How hard could it be? No one was shooting at you and you sure wouldn't have to work with the same precision as you would, say, puttin g together a nice dovetailed joint.

Fade stopped when he was only a few feet from the first patient who ha d come through the door and stood on his tiptoes to try to get a glimps e of a face. One of the nurses leaned over to set up an IV, exposing a woman in her early thirties with dark hair and a thin face that, afte r a moment, he recognized as Kelly Braith. The green complexion ha d thrown him.

The gurneys continued to roll through the doors and Fade moved to a position by the wall where he could watch them pass by.

An attractive, if somewhat severe-looking, young woman with eyes tha t didn't seem quite able to fix on anything. A man in his forties wh o looked like an overdosing accountant ... Fade covered his nose with hi s hand and took a hesitant step forward as a gurney with just the righ t sized lump came rolling toward him. It wasn't the worst smell he'd ever experienced, but it wasn't exactly pleasant either. Somewhere o n the gross-out scale between dirty diapers and mass cremation.

A nurse rushed past him and pulled the sheet back, exposing Hille l Strand just in time for him to vomit all over the floor. Fade reache d for the gun in his waistband as he tried to devise a safe path aroun d the contents of Strand's stomach.

"Sir!" a nurse shouted at him. "You're going to have to step back!"

Fade ignored her, refusing to let her dampen his mood. A perfect en d to a perfect ass. It was almost a shame to shoot him when he wa s suffering in such a completely undignified way. But, what the hell.

"Sir!"

She saw his gun at the same time Fade spotted Matt Egan sprinting pas t the ambulance outside and barreling through the doors. Sometimes tha t guy could be a real killjoy.

The nurse dove to the ground, landing partially in Strand's expelle d carrot cake and shouting, "Gun! Gun!" Everyone scattered, but befor e they did, one of the paramedics gave the gurney containing Strand a hard shove, sending it rolling down the hall and leaving Fade with n o cover. He crouched and ran toward Kelly Braith, ducking behind her an d aiming over her heaving chest.

Egan had missed his opportunity to end things quickly and had bee n forced to take cover behind a soda machine.

"Drop your gun! Now!"

Fade could see the side of his face peeking around the machine bu t Kelly was convulsing to the point that she was screwing up his aim.

"Oh, come on, man. The guy's a complete asshole. Let me shoot him.

Just once, I swear."

"If it was up to me, I'd say go ahead," Egan said. "But I've got kin d of an obligation here."

"What if I promise to just wing him?"

"Tick tock," Egan said.

Kelly suddenly seemed to become aware of what was happening and bega n to try to fight, her barely clenched fist banging uselessly against hi m and a weak squeal starting at the back of her throat. Fade sighe d quietly. As usual, Egan was right. This was a classic example of a Mexican standoff. Matt wasn't going to want to shoot and risk th e possibility of hitting his receptionist or having his bullet go throug h a wall and hit some pregnant lady. Having said that, he was a prett y good shot and if Fade adjusted his aim toward Strand, it would giv e Egan the opportunity to get a bead that he might be comfortable enoug h with to use. And just about as bad, hospital security was probabl y waddling this way right now. Tick tock.

"You're a real thorn in my side," Fade said, backing away slowly , rolling Kelly Braith along with him. "We'll finish this later."

Chapter Thirty-five.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Matt Egan said under his breat h as the elevator opened onto his floor at Homeland Security. There wa s a heavy curtain of clear plastic blocking the hallway, behind whic h everyone was wearing full biohazard suits. As he stepped out of th e elevator, one of the spacemen held a hand out in a gesture reminiscen t of a grade school crossing guard.

"Sir," the man shouted, though it sounded more like a whisper afte r making its way through his face plate and the curtain. "This is a restricted area! Didn't you see the "

"Shut up," Egan said, tearing through the plastic and starting towar d his office. When the man tried to block his path, Egan stuck a hand i n his chest and shoved him back. He lost his footing in all th e biohazard gear and went crashing to the floor, taking the rest of th e curtain with him.

"Out!" Egan shouted as he entered OSPA's reception area. "Everyon e out." Three men, similarly clad in orange suits and respirators , interrupted their sample taking and turned awkwardly.

"Sir! This is a bio "

"Where's Billy?" Egan said, cutting the man off.

"But you can't be "

"Where is he?"

"He's ... in his office. It's possible that he's been cont "

"Do you have people at the hospital?"

The man didn't seem to know what to say and looked to his companion s for support. Neither spoke.

"Hey! Focus! Do you have people at the hospital?"

"They're on their way, but I don't think they've arrived ye "

"Shit!" Egan shouted and started jogging toward Billy's office.

"Sir! You can't go back there. There's a possible "

But he was already through Fraiser's door and in the process o f slamming it behind him.

"Matt! What are you doing here? Why aren't you wearing an y protection? They think we might have been exposed to a biologica l agent. They say we might all be infected!"

"It wasn't a biological agent, for Christ's sake. It was probabl y Ex-Lax." He thumbed back toward the door. "Do you know who's i n charge of this cluster fuck?"

"Yeah, it's "

"Get him on the phone right now and tell him to stop his men from goin g to the hospital. Tell him that we have confirmation that this was a simple chemical agent and that he'll blow a top secret terroris m investigation if they show up. Tell him that you've spoken to Hille l and this is coming directly from him."

"I don't think Hillel can "

"Do it!"

Billy stared at him for a moment and then dropped behind his desk an d began dialing his phone. Egan took the opportunity to go back out int o the hallway in search of some water. His confrontation with Fade ha d left his mouth completely devoid of moisture. As he passed th e reception area on the way to the cooler, he found the haz-mat tea m still standing around, looking confused.

"Why the hell are you still here? I thought I told you to get out. An d take all your crap with you."

He went through three little paper cones, throwing each violently int o the trash can when he had drained it. He should have just taken th e shot. He'd told himself that Kelly was too close, but the chance o f him hitting her at that range wasn't much higher than zero. If he'd have lined up on him, Fade would have gone for Strand and taken th e bullet Egan had seen it in his eyes. And now this would all be ove r instead of getting ready to blow up in his face. He would have kille d Salam al Fayed.

"Well?" Egan said as he slammed Fraiser's door behind him again.

"I did it. They're turning around. I hope to hell you're sure "

Egan's cell phone rang and when he saw the incoming number he fell int o a chair and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello, Fade."

Fraiser's eyes widened a bit and he stared at the phone.

"What kind of person misses their own boss's birthday party? How ar e you ever going to get ahead with that attitude?"

"Look, I've got a guy here who think you've given him Ebola and a n office full of people in space suits. Can I call you right back?"

"No problema."

The line went dead and he stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

"That was him? That was al Fayed?"

"Priority one," Egan said, ignoring the question. "Find out what th e media knows. If there's any security video of me and Fade from th e hospital we need to get hold of it. And none of the hospital staf f talks to anyone about this. Tell them whatever you have to that it's part of a confidential terrorism investigation. I don't want to see o r hear about anyone I know on TV. Especially Fade. With his disguise, I d oubt anyone would have recognized him, but if it goes out over the ai r .. ."

"Uh, okay. I "

"Priority two: Get Banes and Despain on Hillel at the hospital. Fad e might get the idea to go back."

"They're already there. I've got them covering everyone, but with jus t two of them, it's pretty thin."

"Just worry about Hillel. Put one of them in the room with him and ge t the other one after those security tapes."

"But "

Egan pointed at the phone on Fraiser's desk and went back out into th e reception area for another drink. The haz-mat people were actuall y gone, though most of their equipment was still strewn around what wa s left of the office suite. A good half of the furniture was either ou t of place or overturned, and no less than three still-wet puddles o f vomit stained the carpet, filling the air was a sour, acidic odor. He retreated into his office and closed the door, wishing there was a wa y to open the windows.

Fade picked up almost immediately when Egan called him back.

"Matt, you scumbag! You knew I was waiting at that hospital. You ha d plenty of time to divert those ambulances. You were using your ow n boss as bait."

"Worst case, I figured I'd miss and you'd shoot him. Not the end o f the world."

"I've been saying it for years: With a friend like you, a guy doesn't need enemies."

"Fuck you, too."

"Oh, that reminds me, man. There are a couple of gals handcuffed to a toilet at the Wild Flour Bakery. Could you send someone over there t o let them go?"

Egan wrote the name down on a piece of paper. "I'll take care o f it."

"That's about it then. I guess I'll be seeing you."

"Wait! Come on, Fade. This is starting to get stupid. You've got n o chance now. I've got Hillel covered at the hospital by good men guy s whose names you'd recognize. And when he gets out, he's going to com e straight back to Homeland Security, where he's going to stay until h e sees your body. And I can tell you that he's not going to be eatin g any takeout from now on. So, you're screwed. You can't get in her e without killing a bunch of people, which we both know you aren't goin g to do "

"Well, what about you? Why don't we get together and finish what's between us?"

"Not likely. I've got too much to lose now and I'm smart enough t o know that getting involved in a stand-up fight with you would b e suicide. If you and I can't work this thing out, I'm going to fal l back on what I do best. I'm going to figure out where you are an d shoot you from a safe distance."

"Or maybe I'll find you first."

"Maybe."

"No way to live, is it, Matt? Waiting for that other shoe to drop."

"No. I guess it isn't."

The line went dead and Egan leaned back against his desk, standin g there silently for a few minutes before going back to Fraiser's office.

"I've got to go, Billy. Fade probably figures I'm here and I don't want him picking me up."

Fraiser nodded. "I talked to the hospital and the docs say all ou r people are going to be fine. You were right. But no one I talked t o could give me an idea when they'd be released, so for now I'm al l you've got. What do you want me to do?"

Egan leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed his arms i n front of him. "I need everything, Billy. If Hillel's holding anythin g back on us, you've got to find it. Fast."

"I'm on it."

He turned to leave, but then stopped. "Oh yeah. Fade said we need t o get someone down to the Wild Flour Bakery to let the people who mad e the cake go."

"Haz-mat's already there."

"Christ .. ." t i n Chapter Thirty-Six.

"You're going to have to speak up!" Egan shouted into his phone.

Fraiser repeated himself, but was still unintelligible.

"Yell!"

A disorderly line of people had completely covered the sidewalk and wa s starting to spill out into the road, eliciting irritated honks fro m cars trying to get by. Egan moved right, sliding his shoulder alon g the worn brick of the building next to him as he pushed his way throug h the impatient crush of people. After about twenty feet, he was force d out into the street by a particularly dense knot of revelers splashin g each other with beer. The club's door was almost within strikin g distance.

"We got the report from the hospital," Billy shouted. "The stuff tha t was in the cake is all easily available prescription stuff nothing tha t could kill anyone. But the way it was mixed would apparently make yo u wish you were dead. Anyway, the haz-mat people are finally completel y out of it."

"What about Hillel's files?" Egan said, continuing his slo w progress.

"I managed to get into his cabinet but there wasn't anything there. I'm having a harder time with his computer. I'm not a hacker, you know? I d on't think I'm going to be able to get access."

"Shit," Egan said quietly, nodding at two enormous bouncers who steppe d aside and let him through. He had to wait for the frustrated shout s from the people in line behind him to subside before he could spea k again.

"Okay. Keep on it."

Even empty, the corridor was surprisingly cramped and dark, lit onl y with ultraviolet, which caused the graffiti scrawled on the walls t o fluoresce garishly. A moment later, he broke out into a cavernou s concert hall ringed with a wide balcony. At the far end he could see a dimly lit, empty stage squeezed between walls of speakers. Egan mad e his way directly to the closest of four strategically positione d bars.

Even with the crowd still being held at bay outside, the coveted ba r stools were already full. He vaguely recognized most of the people o n them employees of the venue, promoters, roadies, friends of the ban d members. And they recognized him. The stool he'd locked onto wa s quickly abandoned and by the time he'd settled in, so were the one s surrounding it.

He waved at the bartender for a beer and watched the crowd begi n spilling in, fanning out at a half run, seeking to stake out the bes t real estate for the show. In less than a minute the empty stool s around him had filled with people who weren't aware of the alternativ e music industry's widely held belief that he was a governmen t constructed killing machine ready to snap at any moment.

As always, he was amazed at the sheer size and broad diversity of th e crowd: everything from dreadlocks and tie-dye to shaved heads an d leather jackets. Elise had a strangely universal appeal meaning tha t weirdos of all types loved her. She rarely played live locally anymor e and when she did, the shows sold out within a few hours. He reache d for his wallet but the bartender just shook his head and slid the bee r across the bar to him. The free drink seemed to increase the interes t his khakis and polo shirt were getting from the two typically dangerou s looking skinheads sitting next to him.

They were right, of course. He shouldn't have been there, but hi s confrontation with Fade and the chaos that was sure to ensue had lef t him feeling completely unanchored. It was almost like he was goin g backward in time rewinding himself into the ball of nerves and violenc e that the Special Forces had temporarily transformed him into. He needed something to remind himself that he wasn't that person anymor e and frankly had never aspired to be that person in the first place.

Besides, the risk was almost nonexistent. There was no way that Fad e would think he'd be stupid enough to show up at one of his own wife's concerts. Too obvious.

He was on his second beer when a general roar from the crowd prompte d him to spin around on his stool, just in time to see a young woman wit h shockingly green hair and a matching bass guitar stride out onto th e stage. She was undeniably his least favorite person in the band a n evil bitch who had gone out of her way to make sure he was aware tha t she had an insane crush on his wife, while carefully keeping i t completely hidden from everyone else. Even Elise was completel y oblivious. Next out was the violin player, an incredibly gifted an d impossibly thin guy with an uncontrollable passion for heroin and a n even more uncontrollable paranoia that Egan was a DEA snitch. Finally , Erik, a genuinely good guy, stepped into the lights. He was the onl y person in the band other than Elise who didn't refer to him as "Th e Baby Killer" behind his back. Thank God for drummers.

The roar turned to screams when Elise stepped out, wearing a blac k miniskirt and a rather Puritan white blouse that had been her mother's.

She plugged in a glittery silver guitar that he'd gone into hock to bu y her a few Christmases ago, sang a few a cappella lines into he r microphone and then slammed a hand into the strings, producing a wal l of sound that seemed like it should have shattered the mirror behin d him. Predictably, people near the stage went nuts gyrating wildly an d bouncing off one another in a display of childlike enthusiasm that he'd once mistaken for a riot.

He inserted a pair of custom made earplugs and watched his wife put a foot up on a monitor, flinging her black hair back and forth agains t her face. It was hard to imagined what he'd have said if, ten year s ago, a fortune-teller had told him that one day he would be sitting i n a concert hall with nine hundred people looking up his wife's skir t while she tried to destroy a guitar he still had seven payments to g o on. And that he'd be happier than he'd ever imagined he could be.

What would that fortune-teller have to say to him today? Would sh e tell him that he was going to lose everything just when he'd finall y gotten it?

Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he glanced up. The light ha d turned a bit chaotic and for a moment he could only see a six-foot-tal l outline wearing a white, vaguely Asian-looking shirt tucked into a pai r of jeans. When one of the wandering spotlights hit the mirror behin d the bar, there was a sudden flash that revealed the man's tan skin , short brown hair, and a pair of blue tinted glasses perched on a n elegant, Mesopotamian nose.

Egan half jumped, half fell, off his stool, landing both himself an d his beer in the lap of the person next to him. That person , understandably upset, shoved him hard from behind and Egan ended up o n all fours on the floor. By the time he'd made it to his feet, th e skinhead wearing his beer was off his stool and coming at him. He looked to weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds and wasn't a distraction that Egan needed at that moment.

He braced himself for the inevitable impact but, before it coul d happen, Fade swung an arm into the man's throat, clotheslining him an d sending him crashing to the floor. He followed up with a bored-lookin g kick, connecting the silver tip of his cowboy boot with the man's temple.

In his peripheral vision, Egan saw two bouncers running as fast as the y could in their direction and tried to watch both them and Fade, who wa s now seated and waving a ten dollar bill at the frozen bartender.

"Stop!" Egan shouted loud enough to be heard over the feedbac k emanating from his wife's guitar. The bouncers both knew him and di d as they were told, eyeing Fade but, fortunately, not making a mov e toward him. Egan pointed at the man lying motionless on the floor an d then toward the door. The bouncers grabbed him by the jacket and bega n dragging him out, never taking their eyes off Fade, who was now perche d cross-legged on his stool, sipping at a Budweiser.

Egan looked around him, making sure that everything was as unde r control as could be expected during one of his wife's shows and pulle d his earplugs out.

"I underestimated you," he shouted, sitting down again and waving for a fresh beer. "Good guess."

"I'd love to take credit," Fade said, leaning in close enough to b e heard, but still keeping some distance between them. "But I bought m y ticket weeks ago. Your wife's a genius. Honestly, I remember you a s more of a Village People kind of guy."

Egan gave the bartender a twenty and indicated that he should keep th e change.

"Who's the bass player, Matt? She's cute in kind of a character-from-a-Japanese-cartoon sort of way."

"I'd be happy to introduce you."

"Nah. Not a great time for me to be starting relationships .. . How's your sister?"

"She's okay. Married a lawyer and has three kids. Plays golf."

Fade smiled and turned so he could better see the show. "Good. That's good."

Egan wasn't sure what else they had to say to each other, so they ende d up just sitting there pretending to watch Elise but really watchin g each other.

Egan had a pistol in the small of his back he'd known the bouncer s wouldn't frisk him. Had Fade gotten a weapon in? Did it matter? Ther e were people everywhere -jammed in so tight that even sitting at the ba r they were being bumped when the crowd surged. The gun would have t o stay where it was.

"Do you think we did any good?" Fade said finally.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what was the point of us going out there and risking our asse s and then coming home to the funerals of our friends? The Africans ar e still butchering and starving each other. The Arabs are still runnin g around with bombs stuffed down their pants. The North Koreans an d Iranians are still trying to figure out a way to nuke us. What was th e point?"

"Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way?"

Fade laughed. "But what is truth? Or justice? Or, for that matter , the American way? It changes every day. Remember when cheese was a healthy snack, Saddam Hussein was defending the Middle East agains t extremism, and Milli Vanilli were brilliant musicians? What ideals ar e guys younger than us dying for that will be completely out of style i n five years? I mean, we clearly don't know what the fuck to do with th e world, so why don't we just leave it alone?"

Egan shrugged and took a pull from his beer bottle. "Sometimes it's hard to stand by and watch without trying to do something. An d sometimes it's not that noble. Sometimes it's just fear, or politics , or a hangover from the Cold War. Hell, I don't know."

Fade fell silent again and watched a man in a flannel shirt jump ont o the stage and then dive off into the crowd as Elise continued t o shorten the life expectancy of her guitar.

Sitting so close made it almost impossible not to let memories of thei r past partially blot out the realities of their present. Egan ha d always been the boss and, in his own right, had been extremel y successful. But somewhere in the back of every man's mind, there wa s that spark that made you want to be Salam al Fayed. Sure, it was grea t to be a respected businessman or actor or whatever, but there wa s something a million years old that made you yearn to be the strongest , the bravest, the fastest. To be the great warrior whose name wa s spoken in whispers.

"I admired the cake thing," Egan said as Elise's song degenerated int o random noise and then went silent. She put her guitar in a metal stan d and the band abandoned the stage.

Fade grinned. "I'm not sure if I'm pissed about you stopping me fro m killing Strand or not. Giving the guy explosive diarrhea was almost a s good."

"Then why not call it a win and skip the country?"

"Watch this." He kicked his heel into the brass rail at the bottom o f the bar with enough force to shake the bottles on top. "Didn't feel a thing."

"Fade, I "

He put a finger to his lips and then pointed over Egan's shoulder.

"I heard you were here," Elise said, wrapping her arms around his nec k and kissing him. Fade watched the scene intently for a moment and the n redirected his gaze to the floor when Elise jumped up on her husband's lap and waved at the bartender.

"What are you doing here?" she said, turning so that she was a s invisible to the crowd as possible. Despite that, she was attracting a fair amount of attention. For the moment, though, people seemed to b e keeping their distance.

"My meeting let out early, so I drove down for the show."

She accepted a tall glass of ice water from the bartender and downe d almost all of it in a single effort. Egan maneuvered her into a mor e comfortable position in his lap and pushed some of the sweaty hair fro m her face.

"So when do you have to go back?"

"Tonight. Right after the show."

She rolled her eyes. "You've got to be kidding me. How many meeting s can one person have?"

"You've got to at least come by and see Kali."

He glanced up and caught Fade studying them again. Having Elis e pressed up against him was exactly what he'd come there for, so why di d he suddenly want to push her away? The answer wasn't hard to come u p with. How would he feel if his life and Fade's were reversed? Wha t would it be like to watch this?

"I really don't think I can. I "

"Aren't you going to introduce us?"

Elise looked over at Fade and then back at him.

"Uh, yeah," Egan said quietly. "Sorry. Elise, this is ... John. He's an old friend of mine. We just bumped into each other."

"An old friend?" Elise said, shaking Fade's hand. "What would an ol d friend of Matt's be doing at one of my shows? Shouldn't you be at th e ABBA reunion?"

Nothing at all registered on Fade's face and for some reason tha t complete lack of emotion made Egan even more tense than he alread y was.

"I don't share your husband's atrocious taste in music."

She smiled. "Until now, all of Matt's old friends have either looke d like G. I . Joe or extras from The Dukes of Hazzard. How do you kno w each other?"

"Long, boring story," Egan cut in.

"Yeah, I guess it is." Fade stood. "Actually, I've got to hit th e road."

"You're not going to watch the last set?" Elise said.

He shook his head and offered her his hand again. "It's been a rea l honor meeting you." Then he stepped around and leaned in close enoug h that his lips brushed Egan's ear. "You should go see your daughter , Matt. We'll continue this tomorrow night."

He nodded toward Elise and then began to back cautiously away.

Once he had a few people between them, he turned and disappeared.

"Interesting guy," Elise said, finishing her glass of water. "You'l l have to tell me that long, boring story some day."

Egan forced a smile. "Sure. Whatever."

She twisted around and pulled away a bit, examining his face. "Are yo u all right, Matt?" ; "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You look weird. Like the Grim Reaper just walked by o r something."

As long as he lived he would never get used to Elise's occasiona l bursts of extremely disturbing clairvoyance.

"I'm just kind of tired. Maybe you're right. Maybe I should spend th e night and go back in the morning."

She jumped off the stool and leaned against his knees. "Are yo u serious?"

"Yeah."

"Meet me backstage after the show and maybe, if you play your card s right, I'll let you give me a lift home."

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

"Talk to me, Bill."

Hillel Strand managed to walk across the office with a reasonabl e amount of dignity, but the facial contortions he made when he bent t o sit behind his desk made Fraiser wonder if this meeting wouldn't b e better conducted in the bathroom. Lauren probably felt about the sam e but managed to keep the wrinkle-free mask she showed the world intac t as she propped herself against the wall.

Other than the three of them, OSPA's office suite was completely empty.

Lauren and Strand had ignored their doctor's advice and left th e hospital early but everyone else would probably be there for a few mor e days of observation.

"From a media standpoint, everything is surprisingly under control,"

Fraiser started. "We've changed all your names in the hospital recor d to be thorough, but they wouldn't be released anyway because o f confidentiality. We have the only copy of the security tape and th e hospital administration is saying that the camera was defective. Th e press is running the story, but they don't have anything but eyewitnes s accounts to go by. There's a vague description that no one seems t o completely agree on beyond the fact that he was blond, tan, an d male."

"The police?"

"We're watching their progress, but they seem to just think that it wa s some wacko. They're more confused about who Matt was, but they'r e thinking he was just some bystander with a gun."

"How did Matt end up being there?" Lauren said.

An obvious question, but a complicated one to answer. Fraiser had bee n angry and confused when he realized that Egan had used his own innocen t coworkers as bait, but then after watching the security tape, he'd understood.

"I finally managed to get in touch with Matt when you were already o n your way to the hospital. He figured that al Fayed would be waitin g for you there and wanted me to divert the ambulances, but it was to o late. Luckily he was in the car and he wasn't far from the hospita l they were taking you to .. ."

Both Strand and Lauren seemed to buy the completely plausible lie. No t too surprising since they both looked like it was taking all thei r concentration just not to fall over.

"Is there any movement on finding al Fayed?"

Fraiser shook his head. "We're still pursuing the leads we've got bu t they aren't getting us anywhere."

"Goddamnit!" The outburst seemed to temporarily rob Strand of hi s balance and he was forced to grip his desk. "Get Matt on the phone. I w ant to talk to him. Now."

"I'll do what I can, but "

"I don't want to hear that you'll do what you can! Our entire team wa s nearly killed yesterday and I goddamn well want to find out how thi s half-educated son of a bitch is keeping one step ahead of us."

"Yes, sir."

Strand waved his hand at them. "Get out."

Fraiser followed Lauren down the hall in silence but when she began t o turn into her office, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her alon g behind him.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to talk to you."

"Shouldn't you be trying to get in touch with Matt?" she said , struggling to escape his grip but not having the strength to make a real effort.

"Fuck Hillel."

"Bill, are you "

He dragged her through his door and closed it behind them. "I want t o know what you have that you're not telling us."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit. Look, Lauren, while Hillel's in here hiding in his office , Matt's out there putting himself on the line. He deserves to kno w everything."

"I don't know what to tell you, Bill. I "

"He could have killed you. All of you. Why didn't al Fayed just pu t cyanide in that cake?"

"Because he's a sadistic nut and likes to do his killing face t o face?"

Obviously, Strand had been working to prop up the illusion he'd created.

"Come on, Lauren. Would you "

"I've got work to do," she said, turning to leave. He caught her b y the arm again and, again, she tried to pull away.

"Watch the security tape," he said. "Then, if you want to, you ca n just go back to your office and do whatever."

"Jesus, Bill .. . Okay. Fine. Put on the tape."

He released her and took a remote off his desk, aiming it at a smal l television stuffed into his bookcase. The video was black and whit e and the angle wasn't perfect, but overall it was pretty clear.

"That's al Fayed," he said pointing to a man coming on screen from th e left. "And here you all come."

The doors at the end of the hospital corridor were open and th e sunlight flooding through them caused a bit of over exposure givin g gurneys and the convulsing patients they contained a ghostly quality.

Lauren wrapped her arms around herself as she watched the nurses an d paramedics running back and forth, shouting silently.

"Okay, now watch him," Fraiser said as Fade stepped forward an d examined Lauren's face. It wasn't possible to read his expression, bu t his disinterest was obvious.

It wasn't until he locked onto Strand that he began to pull a gun fro m his waistband. A nurse motioned him back but then saw the gun.

Everyone scattered and a moment later, Matt Egan ran through th e door.

"Well?" Fraiser said, pausing the tape.

"I don't know what you want from me, Bill. I don't work for Matt. I w ork for Hillel."

"It doesn't matter who you work for. This isn't politics. This i s real."

"Don't you think I know that? Do you have any idea what I just wen t through? What it's like to be lying there thinking you're dying whil e some guy gets off on it?"

"But you didn't die. Al Fayed had two opportunities to kill you and h e didn't take either one. Matt was telling us the truth when he said a l Fayed isn't after us. Hillel just said that because he wanted u s motivated."

"Maybe he just wants Hillel most and wanted to get him first in cas e security showed up before he could kill all of us."

Fraiser shrugged. "Maybe you're right. But if you are there's a question you need to ask yourself." He tapped the frozen image of Ega n on the small screen. "If al Fayed's really after you, who do you wan t watching your back? Hillel or Matt?"

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

It was a beautiful spot a little more than an hour outside of D. C. an d not all that far from where he used to live. On the downside, becaus e of the dense foliage lining both sides of the narrow dirt road, it wa s impossible to avoid the deep ruts crisscrossing it. Isidro hadn't anticipated the Caddy ever leaving the asphalt and the finely tune d racing suspension was protesting loudly. Fade turned the polic e scanner off in favor of the intermittent drone of mosquitoes buzzin g around the open car and slid a little farther down in his seat , focusing more on the clear sky above him than the deserted road i n front of him.

Over the last twenty-four hours it seemed like everything had changed.

He wasn't ready to fully admit it yet, but Matt Egan was right. He'd blown what was probably going to be his only chance at Hillel Strand.

Why hadn't he just aimed and taken the shot? Fifty-fifty chance tha t he'd have gotten a round off before Egan killed him. Then it woul d have all been over. Too many years of training for survival, h e supposed. It was turning out to be harder to overcome than he'd expected.

Despite hours of driving around thinking, he didn't even know where t o start again with Strand. He was either at the hospital under heav y guard or he was at his office sitting behind half a billion dollars' w orth of concrete, Plexiglas, and state-of-the-art security systems.

Which left only Matt. Fade could still picture him sitting ther e wit h Elise on his lap, but he couldn't decipher how he felt about tha t image. He was trying hard for outrage and jealousy but he couldn't seem to get it to burn. The more he thought about how much they looke d like they loved each other and their lives, the more tired an d disconnected he felt.

He shook his head violently and turned on the stereo, trying to driv e away the depression that was starting to grip him. He'd thrown out th e interminably cheerful Go-Gos CD in favor of the more appropriat e Ministry. In his experience, it was impossible not to be angry whe n listening to Ministry.

He slid still farther down in the seat, trying to relieve the sickenin g ache in his back. Deciding it was hopeless, he straightened an d instead concentrated on the pain, the music, and the memory of Hille l Strand lying there helpless only a few feet away.

The road dead-ended in a small clearing that contained a single empt y car Karen Manning's. If there was a second drawback to the Caddy, i t was that it was a little too flashy to effectively tail someone in.

He'd had to hang way back and had almost missed her turning off th e highway. Based on the tank top and shorts she was wearing, he assume d she was going for a run, but had expected her to head for a town par k or school track not to drive fifty miles to the middle of nowhere.

He eased to a stop and stepped out of the car, going around to th e front and leaning backward across the hood as far as he could. Th e quiet crunching sound coming from his spine was mildly alarming, bu t the muscles around it reacted to the position and warmth of the engine , relaxing a bit.

When he was satisfied that he was as loose as he was going to get, h e crossed the clearing to an obvious trailhead and began jogging up th e narrow path. He started slowly, increasing his speed every minute o r so until his lungs began to burn and the sweat stung his eyes.

It took almost half an hour for him to catch his first glimpse of Kare n Manning, cresting a depressingly distant hill. There had been a tim e when he'd known exactly how hard he could push himself and exactly ho w the effort would affect him. Now, though, he had no idea. Despite th e fact that he was holding a pace that was probably only half of wha t he'd been able to sustain before, his heart felt like it was going t o burst through his chest. And worse, he was losing coordination in hi s right leg.

When he saw her next, it was only for a moment a brief flash of pin k and yellow that was clearly starting to pull away.

Karen Manning glanced behind her when she came briefly out of the tree s and saw that the runner behind her had lost some time. Based on hi s stumbling gait, though, he was doing everything he could to gain i t back.

She shook her head and jumped over a tree that had fallen across th e trail, dodging through the limbs scattered on the other side. Sometime s she was more than happy to hook up with somebody on the trail a littl e interesting conversation could help pass the miles. But not here.

When she drove all the way out to this trail, it was for solitude.

Besides, anyone trying that hard to catch her was doing it for a reason. She'd end up spending the next hour listening to choked-of f pick up lines and watching the guy drool on himself.

"See ya," she said out loud and lengthened her stride, starting up a steep incline at a pace almost no one in Virginia could match. Te n minutes later, when she reached the top of a ridge and looked back, he r pursuer was nowhere in sight.

It felt good to run hard, to block everything out. But that wasn't wh y she'd come there. She needed some time to think. Satisfied that sh e wasn't going to be caught, she slowed to a pace that would allow her t o concentrate on more complex issues than where her feet were falling.

According to John Wakefield, the investigation into Fade was more o r less stalled. They were reasonably certain that he was still in th e country but couldn't narrow it down much more than that. Inquirie s into his background had ended in the conclusion that he'd left his pas t almost completely behind.

As the fortunes of her former colleagues waned, though, her situatio n just kept getting better. She'd aced the Bill O'Reilly interview an d Pickering had gone into hiding after his meeting with her father's legal team a group of men and women who considered Genghis Khan soft.

And, on an even brighter note, the media had become bored wit h interviewing her men's widows and were looking for a new angle. Her PR p eople were busy making certain that angle would be her own saintly an d tireless devotion to protecting the American people, helping he r church, and baking cookies for the local orphanage.

Her dad, who loved nothing more than manipulating the media an d crushing people he perceived to be his enemies, had informed her tha t he wouldn't be satisfied until everyone in the U. S. saw her as a cros s between Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa. There was little doubt that h e would succeed he'd never failed at anything in his life. But even wit h her reputation reconstructed, it seemed unlikely that she would ever b e a cop again. Or that she would ever want to be. No matter what wa y public opinion swung, her men were dead and she bore a lot of th e responsibility for that. She doubted a week would go by for the res t of her life that she didn't wake up seeing their faces.

So what now? If she bought into her mother's recent "you can d o anything you put your mind to" speech, things looked pretty wide open.

Movie star? President? Brain surgeon? Not likely.

The idea of becoming a prosecuting attorney had crossed her mind, bu t the mere thought of law school made her want to shoot herself. Colleg e track coach? Maybe .. .

She sped up again, not yet ready to make any decisions about the res t of her life. It was only another ten minutes to her turnaround poin t and then it was downhill the rest of the way.

Karen was about two miles from her car when she came around a shar p bend and saw a man lying on a boulder next to the trail. Her pac e faltered as she got closer and recognized his clothes as the ones wor n by the man who had been running behind her.

He looked dead.

She finally stopped a few feet away and stared down at him. Could h e have had a heart attack trying to catch her? No way. Her luck jus t couldn't be that bad.

"Sir? Excuse me. Sir?" she said, taking a hesitant step toward him.

"Are you all right?"

She let out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding whe n I. h is head lolled over in her direction and he opened his eyes. "You'r e either really fast or I've gotten really slow." "I'm pretty fast."

He smiled and looked back up at the sky muttering something under hi s breath. She couldn't be sure, but she thought it was "How the might y have fallen."

"So you're okay?"

"I can see why you run here," he said. "It feels like you're a millio n miles away from everything."

She leaned forward a bit, squinting at what was visible of his fac e behind the sunglasses he wore. There was something familiar there.

"Have a nice afternoon," she said finally and stepped back onto th e trail. "Enjoy the view."

"Hold on. I have something for you." 2 "Excuse me?"

I He reached for something beside him on the rock and tossed it t o her.

! She caught it and immediately recognized her wallet. When she raise d her head again, the man had pushed his sunglasses up on his head an d was I looking right at her. With his eyes exposed, there was littl e question as to f where she'd seen him before.

I The jolt of adrenaline hit her hard and she bolted down the trail , | getting a good fifteen feet before looking back. He hadn't moved.

She eased off, letting her momentum carry her another five feet befor e she stopped and turned back toward him. He was just lying there , staring a t the sky.

Under normal circumstances, when faced with a cop killer, she'd b e trying to devise a way to capture him. Even unarmed, her one hundre d and forty-five pounds of muscle and her brown belt in jujitsu made he r fairly confident against men much larger than she was. These weren't normal circumstances, though. Last time they'd met, he'd gone throug h her like she wasn't even there. Besides, he probably had a gun and sh e was armed with nothing nylon shorts, a tank top, and a pair o f Adidas.

That left plan B, which was to run and call the police when she go t back to her car. There was no way he was going to catch her on foot.

No way.

When he pushed himself to a sitting position, she backed away anothe r five feet and watched him light a cigarette.

"You should quit," she said when he began coughing violently.

"Quit? I just started."

She remained planted when he swung his legs off the boulder an d stood.

"What are you doing here, Mr. al Fayed? What do you want?"

He pointed to the wallet in her hand.

"You could have mailed it."

He shrugged. "My killing spree isn't turning out to be as fun as I'd hoped. Every morning lately I get up more tired than I was when I wen t to bed. I'm having a hard time remembering things that last week wer e really important to me ..."

Her first impression of him had been badly tainted by fear, sh e realized. Certainly he was well above average looking even with th e Billy Idol hair but that wasn't what struck her. It was his sadness.

When he started toward her, she realized that she wasn't afraid of him.

Though she knew that she probably should be.

"You're finally going to tell me your story," she said, as he passed b y and continued down the trail.

"Am I?"

"I figure it's that or you're here to turn yourself in," she said , catching up and walking alongside him.

"I might be here to kill you," he suggested.

"You might.. ."

They'd been walking in silence for what seemed like a long time whe n they finally reached the clearing where she'd parked. Her head ha d been spinning the entire time.

She'd known about his military background, but the fact that th e company he'd left the navy to join was a CIA front was definitely news.

And based on the amount of trouble that the police were having gettin g information on that now defunct company, it was probably true. Th e fact that he'd been a highly successful assassin working primarily i n the Middle Eas t also jibed nicely with his ethnic background and the fact that he'd single | handedly wiped out an entire SWAT team. The details of hi s back injur y and subsequent work with the Colombians rang depressingly true , too.

Even more startling, though, was the involvement of Homelan d Security and Hillel Strand the man who had stupidly caused all this an d was undoubtedly working very hard to keeping his role hidden.

When they reached the middle of the clearing, she stopped an d grabbed his shoulder. "Why tell me this, Fade? Do you want me to g o t o the police with it? The press?"

He shook his head and for a moment she thought that was the onl y answer she was going to get.

"It's hard .. ." he started, speaking slowly and seeming t o concentrat e on every word. "It's hard to do everything I've done, to giv e everything i I've given, and to know you're going to be remembered a s nothing more than some pathetic psychopath. I mean, I don't want a medal or anything I don't deserve one. But for some reason I wanted a t least one person to know the truth after I'm gone."

"Gone where?"

He smiled and started toward an immaculate old convertible.

"Why me?" she called after him.

"Oh, come on, sweetie!"

Karen spun toward the voice and watched a man with a .45 step fro m behind her car.

"Obviously, Fade thinks if he blubbers enough, you're going to le t him get in your pants."

Karen glanced over at Fade, who was standing completely motionless , watching the man with an almost perplexed expression. "Look, I don't know who you are but I'm a cop "

"I know who the fuck you are, Karen," t he man said, moving cautiously toward her, but keeping his gun traine d on Fade. "And I believe it's more accurate to say that you're a forme r cop."

He stopped about ten feet away and tossed her a couple of zip ties. "I t hink you know how to use those. Down on your face, Fade."

He didn't move until the man swung his gun level with Karen's head.

"Hillel doesn't want you killed until he talks to you, but I don't hav e orders one way or another about the bitch."

Fade sunk to his knees and then lay facedown on the ground. The ma n waved his gun, prompting Karen to walk over and kneel beside Fade.

"A friend of yours?"

"Roy Buckner. Army Delta."

"Shut up!"

Karen tightened a zip tie around Fade's wrists and then looped th e other around his ankles. He didn't react at all to being bound, h e just lay there with his cheek pressed into the dirt and his eyes fixe d on nothing.

"Why don't you give that one around his hands another tug," Buckne r said.

She glared at him for a moment, but in light of the gun aimed at her , did as he asked.

Buckner stepped a little closer. "One more."

"It'll cut off his circulation."

"He's not going to need his hands anymore."

"Fuck you."

He was pretty fast, but she still saw the kick coming and managed t o get an arm up, partially blocking it. Still, the force sent he r sprawling to the ground. She heard a quiet ratcheting as Buckner gav e the zip tie one last pull and then felt him grab the back of her nec k and shove her face into the dirt. She was in the process of using hi s momentum to roll him off her when the unmistakable coldness of a gu n barrel pressed against the back of her head.

"Now you wouldn't be armed, would you?" he said, not letting the fac t that she wasn't wearing enough to conceal a weapon keep him fro m entertaining himself by searching her thoroughly. After about a minut e of having his knee in her back and his hands all over her, he slappe d her on the butt.

"Looks like she's clean, Fade. But she could just be tricky, huh? Wha t do you think? Maybe I missed a spot."

Fade remained silent, eyes still focused on nothing but the air. He didn't react at all when Buckner knelt beside him and conducted an onl y slightly less thorough search. He seemed a little worried that h e didn't find anything.

"You look like a strong little thing," he said, stepping back an d pointing the gun at Karen again. "Tell you what I want you to do. I w ant you to pick up our friend here and throw him in the back seat o f his car."

She did as she was told, rolling Fade onto his back and dragging hi m across the clearing. He didn't seem interested in being helpful and i t was clear that Buckner didn't want to get within ten feet of hi s prisoner, so Karen found herself having to use a combination of brut e strength and leverage to get Fade's dead weight off the ground.

When she started tipping him forward over the side of the convertible , Buckner ran up behind them and threw a vicious kick to his lower back.

Karen got partially in the way of it and took some of the blow with he r own back, but Fade still absorbed enough force to flip him over th e side of the car and into the back seat.

"How's the ol' spine?" Buckner said, looking down at Fade's motionles s body. "Still bothering you?"

"You son of a bitch!" Karen shouted, taking a step toward him but the n stopping when he aimed his gun between her eyes.

"Get his keys."

She didn't move immediately, instead standing there grinding her teeth.

Finally, she crawled into the back seat and began fishing around i n Fade's pockets. "Are you all right?"

His eyes were closed now and his muscles seemed completely slack.

"Get behind the wheel and put your seat belt on," Buckner ordered.

When she'd complied, he slid into the passenger seat and slammed th e door shut.

"Pretty stupid to set me up like this, Fade," he said, turning in th e seat so he could watch both of them at the same time. "I mean if yo u had a hard-on for this bitch, why didn't you do something about it whe n you had the chance? You can be a sneaky bastard and you're a prett y good shot I'll give you that. But I swear you were always a littl e soft in the head."

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

It had been a classic no-win situation. Strand could have stayed a t the hospital but Banes and Despain had made it clear that they couldn't guarantee his safety there. The only other option was to return to th e office, ensuring his physical survival but also guaranteeing a political showdown that he wasn't prepared for.

He sat quietly as Darren Crenshaw, the recently appointed director o f Homeland Security, put a foot up on one of the drawers in his desk an d tapped out a monotonous rhythm with a pencil.

Crenshaw was a former Marine general and Rhodes Scholar who saw n o reason to evolve personally to better fit his new political role. Hi s spacious office was sparsely decorated with government-issue furniture , his hair was chopped in a ruler-straight flattop, and his dark suit ha d the look of a dress uniform stripped of its emblems and medals. He ha d been a surprise appointee considering the fact that he didn't bother t o hide his distaste for political reality and his bias toward people wh o had, in his words, "been in the trenches."

To make matters even worse, Crenshaw was strangely unpredictable. Man y of the men who had enjoyed success in the military were quit e brilliant, but most could be counted on to have a somewhat plodding an d easily anticipated thought process.

"I'm not sure I completely understand this cake thing," Crenshaw sai d finally.

Obviously, there had been no way to keep that incident quiet. The bes t Strand could hope to do was massage the truth in a way that would kee p him out of harm's way until al Fayed could be dealt with.

"We believe now that the perpetrator broke into my assistant's hous e and found a note she'd written to remind herself to pick up a cake fo r my birthday. He held the baker hostage and forced her to poison tha t cake."

"The world 'poison' might be a little strong," Crenshaw pointed out.

"Best guess is that this guy just wanted to make you real sick."

"Yes, sir. He obviously wanted to get us to the hospital where h e could kill us face to face ..."

The timing of this meeting couldn't have been worse. Strand's head wa s pounding mercilessly and his stomach felt like it was twisted in a vise. In a conversation that demanded complete mental agility, it wa s taking everything he had to just track on what was being said.

"I wonder. Why deal with all that uncertainty when you could just dum p a bunch of shoe polish or something in there and get you all fo r sure."

"This way was more public. The description of the perpetrator suggest s that he could have been Arab."

"But with blond hair and no accent."

"Yes, sir."

The only path Strand could take was to suggest that he and his peopl e were attacked by an unknown terrorist who had discovered the existenc e of their unit. Reasonably plausible and difficult to disprove.

"And Matt somehow figured out the hospital was the place to be an d intercepted the guy there."

"Yes, sir. He talked to "

"How did he know this wasn't a biological attack?"

"Excuse me?" Strand said, trying to give himself time to adjust to th e sudden change in subject.

"From what I hear, he walked into the office after you were hauled of f and not too gently threw our haz-mat people out. Now, I don't kno w Matt well, but I know him well enough to say he's not careless o r stupid."

?

Strand kept his expression passive, but felt the anger building insid e him. Egan had fucked up badly bursting in like that.

"I'm sorry, I can't answer that. He's out chasing leads and I've no t talked to him. My assumption is that he spoke with one of the doctor s and they told him what we'd ingested, but I just had the strength t o follow up on "

"So would it be fair to say that, in your delicate condition, you'v e put Matt in charge of this investigation?"

"I'm in the process of getting back up to speed, sir. I "

"But you're not yet."

"Obviously, I'm still feeling the effects of "

"I don't want to hear it, Hillel. We've got an attack on a Homelan d Security division that no one's supposed to know about and for goo d goddamn reason by a guy who may or may not be of Arab extraction. I w ant to know who this guy is, where he is, and how the hell he foun d out about you. But you don't seem to be able to tell me any of thos e things."

Strand felt his phone begin to vibrate. "Excuse me, sir." He pulle d the phone from his pocket and looked down at the incoming number. Ro y Buckner. "This could be an update on the situation, sir. Do you min d if I take it?"

Crenshaw waved a hand dismissively and began nipping through a file o n the desk.

"Hello?" Strand said, pressing the phone to his ear hard enough t o ensure that Crenshaw wouldn't be able to hear the other side of th e conversation.

"I got him."

Strand let out a long, quiet breath and slumped slightly in his chair.

Thank God. This was finally going to be over.

"I also got the lady cop."

Crenshaw glanced up at him when he suddenly snapped straight in hi s chair.

"What?" Strand said, keeping his tone even. "You were breaking up."

"I got Manning. There was no avoiding it they were talking about yo u when I found them. Sounds like she's heard his whole life story."

Strand felt the beads of sweat begin on his forehead and resisted th e urge to wipe them away. Why in the fuck couldn't anything just b e simple? Why couldn't things just work out the way they were suppose d to?

"Easiest way," Buckner continued, "is if I do her here and then he ca n either, uh, commit suicide or I can bring him in so you can talk to hi m first."

"Was there any communication with anyone else?"

"Nah. She was jogging in the woods. No cell phone."

"You're sure."

"Believe me. I checked."

Strand slowly turned Buckner's report over in his mind. There was n o way to know how much al Fayed had told her and no way to guarantee sh e would remain silent. Particularly when his body turned up.

Unable to stay in his chair any longer, he stood and turned toward th e wall, running a hand through his hair.

The risk of killing the woman seemed minimal. Al Fayed had murdere d nearly her entire team and it didn't stretch credibility that he migh t try to finish the job and then kill himself. It seemed almost certai n that no one would pursue the issue any further than his dead body. I n fact, the police hierarchy would be ecstatic to see Manning silenced.

Of course, Egan would have his suspicions but what could he do wit h them?

When he turned back around, Crenshaw had abandoned the pretense o f reading the file in front of him and was staring impatiently in hi s direction.

"I'm going to have to call you back on this," Strand said. "I'm in a meeting." He couldn't let himself be rushed into this kind of a decision without time to think it through.

"What the fuck are you talking about, a meeting? Jesus Christ, I'm sitting out here in the goddamn woods ..."

Strand hung up the phone and sat down again. "I'm sorry, sir. Nothin g conclusive yet."

Chapter Forty.

"Can you believe that asshole?" Buckner said, leaning against the ca r door and snapping off a branch that was hanging next to him. "He want s to think about it. No wonder you want to kill him."

At Buckner's orders, Karen Manning had eased the Cadillac into th e woods, scraping along the trees and rocks for twenty yards until th e forest became an impassable barrier. It was far enough, though the y would be completely invisible to anyone who might show up in th e clearing her car was still parked in.

Fade was lying motionless on his stomach in the back seat trying t o concentrate, but there wasn't really that much to think about. Buckne r was a sadistic asshole, but he was well trained and clearly had th e upper hand.

Apparently his life as a clinically depressed cabinetmaker had left hi m stupid, careless, and slow. After everything he'd been through, he wa s going to be shot like a dog by one of the biggest losers the Specia l Forces had ever produced. The really strange thing, though, was tha t he couldn't bring himself to care.

Fade tried to move his completely numb right leg, but the blow he'd taken to his back had pretty much paralyzed it. His left still worke d okay, but there was a pins and needles sensation in it that he'd neve r felt before. He tried his fingers next, but couldn't be certai n whether or not they functioned. The zip ties around his wrists ha d turned them into what felt like lumps of dead flesh.

He was so tired. Just a little catnap. He closed his eyes and ha d almost drifted off when Buckner spoke again.

"You're driving me crazy in that tank top, honey. Hopefully I'll b e able to do Fade first so we can spend some time together."

"What's the difference?" he heard Karen reply. "He's all tied up.

You're not afraid of him, are you?"

Good try, Fade thought, but unfortunately Buckner was nowhere near a s dumb as he looked.

"All that jujitsu shit, right?" he said, laughing. "You're thinkin g you can get one of those arms around my neck, aren't you? It'd be fu n to let you try, but the truth is that everyone who's ever turned thei r back on Fade is dead now. I think I'm going to try to learn from thei r mistakes."

Karen's voice cleared his mind enough for him to remember that sh e probably wasn't as ready as he was to be dead. She still had a life, a family, a future. He managed to focus for almost a minute but n o brilliant escape plans came to mind. Despite the fact that he wa s sitting on a virtual arsenal Isidro had put the back seat on a hing e and it flipped up to reveal a sniper rifle and compact submachine gu n cradled in custom foam he had no way of getting to it. And perhap s even more frustrating, he had no way of telling Karen that th e flip-down armrest between her and Buckner contained a similarly store d .45 and combat knife. James Bond would be so disappointed.

The ring of a cell phone interrupted his train of thought and Fad e craned his neck to watch Buckner put it to his ear.

"Yeah."

There was a long pause before he spoke again. "I understand, but ho w the hell would I know who else he might have talked to? Yeah. Okay.

But I'll need someone to drive my car outta here. Uh-huh. Tell the m they'll see it parked in the trees about a mile off the main highway.

They should just pull up behind it and call me on my cell."

"Bad news, sweetie," he said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket.

"Looks like Fade is going to kill you and then commit suicide. Tragi c story."

Fade closed his eyes, wishing he could drift off into the darknes s again.

This was his fault. Karen was going to die because of him. He jerke d pointlessly against the zip ties holding his wrists, knowing that h e was cutting through his skin but unable to feel it. How could he hav e been so stupid?

"Do you have this bitch brainwashed or what?" he heard Buckner say.

"She looks like she thinks you're going to jump up and save her an y minute now. Are you her knight in shining armor, Fade?" Th e scrunching of leather suggested that he was turning back toward Karen.

"So is that what you think? That he's a hero? Well, let me tell you a story about that. We're in Syria to take out some guy I can't eve n remember his name anymore. Anyway, the guy comes out of his house wit h his family his wife, their baby, and his son who was probably ten o r something. So Fade takes the shot and hits the guy dead center. Th e bullet goes through him, through the baby who the mother is holding , through her, then deflects like ninety degrees and takes the son's hea d off." Buckner laughed hard enough to almost start coughing and Fad e opened his eyes, watching him rock back and forth gleefully. "You kno w what your hero said? Do you remember, Fade? No? He said 'oops."

That's it. "Oops.""

Karen didn't respond.

"You don't believe me, do you? Come on, Fade, tell her. She wasn't ever gonna fuck you anyway. Talk about going for the unobtainable. Yo u should see a shrink."

"You talk a lot, don't you?" Karen said finally, eliciting a quie t snicker from Fade.

"Oh, so you are alive back there," Buckner snapped. "I guarantee yo u I'm going to make you wish you weren't."

"Look, if you're going to kill me," Karen said, "why don't we just ge t it over with?"

"We got a little while before my guys show up. You in a hurry to b e dead?"

"It's got to be better than sitting here listening to you run on at th e mouth."

Fade snickered again and Buckner twisted around, glaring down at him.

The sun had gone behind the mountains and, combined with the dens e foliage overhead, there was no way to see his expression. He coul d imagine it, though.

"If it was anyone but Fade back there, I'd be doing a lot more tha n running on at the mouth. Nah, I think I'll wait on killing you. I d on't want to put a hole in those museum class tits until I absolutel y have to."

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tried to tap one ou t while still keeping an eye on his two prisoners. It fell to th e floorboard and he leaned sideways, feeling around for it with his fre e hand. The combination of the deep shadow on the floor and the fac t that he would only allow himself brief glances down made the searc h less than successful. Finally, he motioned toward Karen with his gun.

"Hit the lights a second, would you, honey?"

A surge of adrenaline suddenly brought Fade fully alert.

"Fuck you," Karen said.

Buckner's only response was to swing the butt of his pistol into he r face. Belted into the seat and with no room to maneuver, she took a pretty hard shot across her cheek. Over the seats, Fade could see he r trying to shake off the effects of the blow. It didn't take long. "A m I supposed to start crying now and do exactly what you say? Turn o n your own goddamn lights."

"For God's sake, Karen, just do it!" Fade said. "He'll kill you."

She twisted around and looked down at him for a moment and then face d forward again, searching the dark console in front of her. "Fine.

How?"

"It's on the floor," Fade said, trying to keep his voice a quie t monotone. "About one o'clock from the accelerator. It tends to stic k so you have to stomp on it."

Buckner leaned right again, obviously wanting to be ready so that th e lights remained on as briefly as possible. A moment later, Karen foun d the switch.

There was an explosion of compressed air and Fade watched the passenge r seat shoot violently upward, followed by the sound of crunching glass , bending metal, and a short, surprised squeal from Karen. He was abou t to shout "Go! Go!" when he realized that he hadn't seen Buckner fl y from the car as expected.

It was a bit of an effort, but he managed to roll on his back and ge t his foot under the seat, which seemed to be jammed about a foot up o n the telescoping rail beneath it. A little pulling with his good le g and he was sitting upright.

Karen had her back pressed against the door and there was bloo d splashed artistically across her face. Buckner hadn't fared quite a s well. Apparently, his knee had caught under the dash when the ejecto r seat activated and the force had snapped his leg; but not before it ha d acted as a fulcrum and swung his head which was now kind of flat on on e side into the spider webbed windshield.

"It worked better in Dr. No ..." Fade said, leaning forward.

The sound of his voice snapped Karen out of her catatonia. She yanke d off her seat belt and jumped to her feet in the driver's seat. "Wha t the hell was that?"

"It's supposed to be an ejector seat, but it seems to have a fe w bugs."

"An ejector seat? Your car has an ejector seat?"

"What, are you complaining?"

When she finally looked down in his direction he turned so she coul d see his hands, which were dripping blood around the zip ties an d leaving large smears on his leather upholstery.

"Jesus," she said, dropping to her knees in the seat. "Is there a knife in the glove box? I don't "

"The top of the armrest flips up."

She played with it for a few seconds, finally getting it open an d staring at the neatly arranged weapons inside.

"Have you ever considered seeking professional help?" she said , cutting the zip tie from his wrists and then handing him the knife. Th e combination of the blood coating his palms and the complete numbness i n his hands made it impossible to hold. She picked it up off the sea t and cut his ankles free, then helped him out of the car.

He limped in circles, trying to get his right leg working, while sh e leaned into the passenger seat and checked Buckner for a pulse.

"Dead," she said.

"Finally. I should have killed that asshole years ago."

After he'd circled the car a few times, the pins and needles wer e completely gone from his left leg and he had about 50 percent mobilit y in the right. Suddenly, he felt good. In fact, he felt downrigh t giddy.

He grabbed an overhead tree branch, ignoring the pain in his hands a s the blood flowed back into them, and did a few sloppy pull-ups.

"Uh, Fade? Now might not be the time for a workout. This guy calle d someone and they're going to be here any minute." Her tone wa s reminiscent of a kindergarten teacher talking to a slow student.

Obviously, she thought he'd lost it. Maybe she was right.

Fade let go of the tree branch and limped back to the car. "Give me a hand," he said, dragging Buckner's body out and dropping i t unceremoniously on the ground. "Get in the back seat and push down. I t hink it's bent."

She jumped in and they both put their full weight on the passenge r seat, managing to return it to almost its normal position. When it wa s clear it wouldn't go any farther, Fade leaned in and retrieve d Buckner's gun.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready."

"For what?"

"For Roy's guys to show up."

"Why?"

"Uh, because I'm going to kill them?"

"Or better yet, we could just drive the hell out of here."

Fade frowned as he examined a deep scratch in his front fender. "Thin k about it, Karen. Hillel's got to keep this as quiet as he can and tha t means he has to limit the size of his team. If I take out three o f them, I've got to think he's going to be temporarily crippled. Tha t gives me more time to track him down."

"You can't kill them, Fade."

He glanced up at her and then went back to surveying the damage to hi s car. "Well, the leg's not ideal, I guess. But I've got surprise on m y side .. ."

"You know what I meant!"

"I'm sorry about getting you involved in this, Karen. It was my faul t and it was stupid. But you are involved and that means that if I don't get these guys today, there's a good chance they'll be showing up o n your doorstep tomorrow."

"I'm not going to let you just go out there and murder them. That's not who I am."

Fade looked up at her. "Okay. You're right. Relationships are abou t compromise. What if I just shoot them in the kneecaps?"

She shook her head angrily, muttering something he didn't catch an d climbed back into the driver's seat. "We're going to get the hell ou t of here and think this thing through." She twisted the key in th e ignition and began slowly backing, steering carefully around Ro y Buckner's broken body. "I just need a few goddamn minutes to think , okay?"

The trip out was faster than the one in, since Karen was showing n o regard at all for the Caddy's delicately tuned suspension. Fad e decided to let it go, though, figuring that he'd rather she took ou t her frustrations on the car than on him.

They came onto the two-lane rural highway without so much as a tap o n the brake and he watched one of his custom hubcaps go spinning off int o a ditch. Even worse, though, was the fact that a set of headlight s visible about two hundred yards back suddenly seemed to be closing.

"Is that car chasing us?" Karen said, glancing calmly in the rearvie w mirror.

"Looks like it."

"Damn it!" she shouted, hammering her hand on the steering wheel. "I f you hadn't been screwing around climbing trees we'd be ten miles dow n the road by now."

"Oh, so now it's my fault. The way I remember it is that if it weren't for me, you'd be dead right now."

"If it weren't for you, I'd be sitting in my office drinking coffee."

She slammed her foot to the floor and Isidro's engine shoved them bac k into their seats. "But instead I'm driving around with the guy wh o killed my men while we get chased by government assassins."

"I said I was sorry."

The headlights behind them receded steadily, but then the road turne d winding and the bulk of the Cadillac became a disadvantage.

"Shit," she yelped, ducking at the sound of a gunshot behind them.

"They're shooting at us!"

Fade looked back at the car bearing down on them and saw the dar k outline of a man aiming a rifle out the passenger window.

"Yup."

"Well, do something!" she shouted over the wind whipping through th e car's open interior. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this kind o f thing?"

"Hey, I wouldn't want to hurt anybody."

The next shot put a neat hole in the windshield between them. No bi g deal, Buckner's head had already trashed it.

"Fade!"

He shrugged and lay down across the seats, resting his cheek on he r bare left thigh. It was kind of comfortable firm, almost hard, muscle s covered in smooth, dry skin .. .

"What the hell are you doing?"

He found the trunk release and pulled it, then rolled on his back so h e was looking directly up at her. "Did the trunk open?"

"Yeah."

"It should be pretty much bulletproof. They had to reinforce it 'caus e of the air compressor."

As if to prove his point, a bullet collided with the thick metal , creating an ear-splitting clang as it ricocheted off.

"Can it do any other tricks?"

"Yeah, but it's kind of a good news, bad news thing. The good news i s that there's a machine gun mounted in the trunk that shoots out ove r the license plate."

"You're kidding."

"This surprises you?"

"I guess not," she said, over the sound of squealing tires and anothe r bullet impacting the trunk. "What's the bad news?"

"It's got blanks in it."

"Blanks! What kind of person would go through the trouble of mountin g a machine gun in his trunk and then not load it?"

"You know, I only did it because it was cool. I never thought I'd actually use any of this stuff."

"Jesus Christ!"

"Here's an idea, though. When we get to a straight section, let the m close in a little. Then, when we're just about to go into a corner , tell me."

"I don't know, Fade. If I let them get any closer, they could hit a tire."

"Come on, it'll be fun. I've got a rifle with real bullets under th e back seat. If they shoot out a tire, we'll just stop and I'll kil l them while you put on the spare."

She glanced down at him and then focused again on the road. "Fine. Wh y not?"

He smiled and wrapped his hand around the cable connected to th e trigger of the rear gun. "The back might lift a little when the gu n goes off."

"Here comes a corner, get ready," she said easing off on th e accelerator and watching the rearview mirror. "Now!"

He yanked on the cable and the satisfying sound of machine gun fire wa s followed by the even more satisfying sound of screeching tire s preceding a loud crash.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and then stood in the seat , trying to see over the trunk. The car chasing them had gone off th e road and slid sideways into a tree. The man with the rifle was alread y out in the street but he looked a little dazed. The driver must hav e still been inside the car.

They rounded another corner and Fade stepped into the back seat to pus h the trunk closed.

"It wasn't cheap," he said as he slid back down next to Karen an d flipped on the police scanner. "But it was worth it."

Not surprisingly, no call to the police had been made and there was n o mention of a Cadillac armed with machine guns roaming the streets o f Virginia. Karen had taken the first exit off the highway and sinc e then she'd been driving exactly the speed limit, taking occasiona l random turns and generally trying to throw off the government agents , who were most likely still waiting for AAA.

Fade was dying to call Hillel Strand and gloat a bit, but Karen woul d probably look down on that kind of childish behavior. She was alread y pretty pissed off and didn't seem that impressed with their incredibl y stylish escape from the clutches of evil.

"So what now?" he said, pretending to examine the scabs forming on hi s wrists. "We can't just drive around forever."

She cut through a McDonald's parking lot and reversed their direction.

"I don't know."

"I can drop you off wherever you want," he said tentatively. "Th e cops. The FBI. Your house. It's up to you."

She didn't answer.

"Karen?"

"I'm thinking!"

"About what?"

"About the fact that someone high up in the government just ordered m y death and I have no idea how well connected he is to the police or th e FBI or whoever. That suddenly, the only person I know who seems eve n slightly trustworthy is a James Bond wannabe who just happens to hav e murdered six of my men."

"Uh-huh. You wanna know what always helps me think?"

"Not really."

"Mexican. A couple of tacos, a few margaritas .. . There's a grea t place right up the "

"You just killed a man and now you want to go out for Mexican?"

"Strictly speaking, you killed him. But maybe you're right.

Italian?"

She looked over at him, her mouth hanging partially open. "You'r e completely nuts, aren't you? I mean, you've really lost it."

He shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, I still say we can't just keep driving around forever."

"Okay. What do you suggest?"

"How about my place? If you get on the highway up here going north w e can be there in less than an hour."

She chewed her lip in an incredibly engaging way for a few seconds an d then turned toward the on ramp. They were halfway up it before sh e spoke again.

"It was Goldfinger."

"What?"

"The ejector seat. It wasn't Dr. No. It was Goldfinger."

Chapter Forty-One.

"My turn!" Kali squealed, jumping up and nearly managing to snatch th e remote from Matt Egan's hand.

"Shhhhh!" he said, holding it out of reach and trying to see aroun d her as she bounced on the sofa cushions.

"No more news!"

"Kali! Either sit and be quiet or go play. Daddy's watching now."

Recognizing defeat, she slinked off down the hall in search of a n alternate mode of entertainment while Egan climbed over the back of th e couch. The hospital attack had gotten a little time on the local news , but Billy had done his job with characteristic efficiency and it wa s being treated as some addict looking for painkillers. The leadin g theory about Egan continued to be that he was just an armed bystande r who didn't want to come forward because he didn't have a permit t o carry. The rest of the program was dominated by Stephany Narwal, th e latest victim in the Collector case, whose body was due to show up in a couple of days. So far, the murders had run like clockwork and th e media was once again gearing up for the unhappy event.

He moved on to CNN after the local program went off the air and caugh t the tail end of a show on Special Forces operatives. The angle wa s that they were trained to be remorseless killers and when they left th e military, they would almost inevitably become a danger to society. Th e guy doing the show seemed enamored with the phrase "ticking tim e bomb."

"Should I be worried?" Elise said, leaning her elbows on his shoulder s from behind the sofa.

"Can you fucking "

"Matt! Kali's just down the hall!"

He lowered his voice. "Can you fucking believe this? Like these guys' j obs aren't hard enough without everyone thinking they're a bunch o f psychos. They put their lives on the line for this country."

"I know," she said, kneeling and sliding her arms around his neck.

"It's just because of that al Fayed guy. They'll tone it down after h e gets caught."

Egan didn't answer, instead going back to staring blankly at th e television as an anchor came on and began to speculate as to whether a young woman named Elizabeth Henrich, who had recently been reporte d missing, was Stephany Narwal's replacement.

"Did you get a chance to look at the ceiling in the garage? It's getting worse .. . Matt? Hello? You really need to do something. Th e spare bedroom is right above it and when me and my lover were in bed u p there, it almost fell through the floor."

"Careful you don't land on the car," he said finally and her arm s tightened around his neck, choking him.

"You're a real ass, you know that?"

Kali, who had apparently been hiding just around the corner, saw he r opportunity and dashed out, making another grab for the remote. He jerked it out of range, but didn't anticipate Elise grabbing it fro m behind.

"You're right, Kali. Your father's being selfish. It is your turn."

Egan sighed and stood, pulling Elise over the sofa and ending up wit h her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Are you sure you have to go?" she said, content to ride along on hi s back as he walked to his den.

It was already early evening hours after he'd promised himself he'd b e gone. Not that he was worried Fade would break their temporary truce.

It was more a concern that his time there would pull him back into hi s role of husband and father, completely fragmenting what little focu s he'd managed to construct.

"I've already missed a full day of seminars, Elise. You want to get m e fired?"

She made a noncommittal grunt as he leaned over to examine a note stuc k to his lamp.

"You know," she said, still stuck firmly to his back. "I've bee n thinking. I've got a couple of free days. Why don't Kali and I driv e up with you? I got an e-mail from one of the guys in Neutral Mil k Hotel and he said they're doing an acoustic set at a bar ther e tomorrow."

Egan froze for a moment and then pretended to concentrate on the not e as he ran through plausible reasons she shouldn't go to New York.

"Doesn't Kali have school? And I don't think they let girls her age i n bars."

A fairly pathetic effort.

"They'd let mine in. And besides, it's not every day you have a fre e place to stay in New York. She's never been there."

"So, let me be clear on this. Your suggestion is that we pull ou r daughter out of kindergarten to take her to a New York bar to see a subversive alternative band."

"My God, I married Tipper Gore," she groaned, tightening her grip o n him. "What subversive? It's an acoustic set. And then I could tak e her to the Museum of Modern Art and maybe to the symphony. I thin k that's a hell of a lot more educational than playing with blocks a t Mistress Martha's House of Middle Class Values."

"Oh, please. You like Martha and you know it. You agreed to tha t school."

"No point in overdoing it."

"Maybe while we're there we could get her a nice tattoo .. ."

"I was going to wait and surprise her for her birthday."

He flipped through his Rolodex and stuck one of the cards from it i n her hand.

"What's this?"

"The number of the plumber you're going to meet here tomorrow so he ca n fix the pipe in our ceiling before the guest bed really does fal l through the floor."

"Couldn't we just "

"Why don't we do New York this fall when I have some time, Elise? Th e three of us."

She planted a chin on his shoulder as he started back toward th e kitchen. "You promise?"

He was ready this time and lied seamlessly. "I promise."

Elise finally slid off his back when he leaned over to kiss hi s daughter on the head. "Gotta go, kid. Can you tear yourself away fro m the tube long enough to walk me to my car?"

Egan eased out of the driveway, trying to steer, wave, and dial hi s cell phone at the same time.

"What's going on, Billy?" he said, narrowly avoiding sideswiping a parked car.

"Matt! Have you talked to Hillel? He's going nuts trying to reac h you."

"I know. I've got about twenty messages from him on my phone."

"You might want to think about calling him back. Word is, he met wit h Crenshaw and that Crenshaw's hot to talk to you."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, Matt.. . Take it from a political hack you should be involve d in this stuff with the director. There's no way of knowing wha t Hillel's saying to him."

"I don't know. I'm not sure I trust your political advice anymore."

"Thanks, man," Fraiser said, taking Egan's statement as the complimen t it was intended to be.

"Did you get anything from Lauren?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't easy. You want the good news or the bad new s first?"

"Good."

"I don't think she's screwing with me I think she's given m e everything."

"Let me guess. The bad news is that it isn't much."

" "Fraid so. You've got all of it except the fact that al Fayed's called Karen Manning a few times."

"Karen Manning? Really?"

"Yeah, seems like he might be kind of into her. The cops have he r tapped, but they aren't focusing too hard on her because they stil l figure al Fayed's long gone. Hillel's got some guy named Roy Buckne r watching her."

Egan frowned and put his wheels into the gravel shoulder to get aroun d an RV. He'd managed to spend the entire day avoiding the questio n "what now," hoping that Billy would find something useful. But now i t was time to face the fact that the only thing he could do is wai t around for Fade to make his next move. And in the interim, he wa s going to have to figure out how to control the latest variable in al l this: General Crenshaw.

"I assume we've still got nothing on the place he took Manning to."

"Not yet."

"Great," Egan said, and then fell silent for a few moments. There wer e just no good choices.

"Okay, Billy. Here's the deal. When I get off the road, I'm going t o e-mail you the identities Fade's been using and the passwords you nee d to watch the credit cards he had issued under those names "

"You're kidding me! You have that stuff?"

"Yeah, I have it and I need you to see what you can do with it. But i f you find anything, I want you to call me first. Then we'll talk abou t whether we want to bring Hillel in on it. Agreed?"

"Absolutely. Agreed."

"Okay. Give me Karen Manning's address."

"You think there's something there?"

"Probably not, but I don't have anything better to do."

"What about Crenshaw?"

"I'm going to think about that."

Chapter Forty-Two.

"This is it?" Karen Manning said, coaxing the Cadillac into a smal l garage. When they were fully inside, Fade reached for the remote an d the metal door began to grind noisily down behind them.

"All the hollowed out volcanoes were taken," he said, getting out o f the car and limping through an open door near the front bumper. He turned on the sink, waited a few seconds for the water to run clear , and then filled a couple of glasses. When he turned around to offe r one to Karen, he found her frozen in the doorway staring at the duc t tape still clinging to the chair centered in the room.

"What would you have done?" she said. "What would you have done to m e if you hadn't turned on the TV and found out I was a cop?"

He spun the chair around and sat, flexing his right leg experimentally.

It was working better than it had an hour ago, but the improvement wa s minimal. It seemed likely that some of the damage done by Buckner's kick was permanent.

"I'd have scared the hell out of you and then I'd have let you go."

She apparently wasn't convinced enough to actually step across th e threshold.

"Come on, Karen, don't look at me like that. I'm a soldier, not a n animal."

"Did you really say it?"

"What?"

" "Oops." When you killed that family."

He looked down at his ankle and absently rolled his foot in circles.

"Is our relationship already that far along?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it time for me to act out one of those bad movie scenes where th e guy says how he killed one too many people and he was suddenly fille d with remorse?"

"I don't know. Is that what happened?"

"Yeah," he said, pushing himself out of the chair. "That's exactl y what happened."

She surprised him by moving out of the doorway and not stopping unti l their faces were only a few inches apart. "No. That's not goo d enough. I want to know the truth."

"The truth, huh."

She nodded, though there was a hint of uncertainty in the movement.

"You know what pisses me off, Karen? That a navy pilot can push a button and shred a thousand women and children and no one has anythin g to say about it. But a guy like me kills a tiny fraction of tha t number damn near every one a sadistic wack job who had it coming an d everybody thinks I'm creepy. The answer you're looking for is no. I d on't feel bad about killing. You think we can just go negotiate wit h these people? You might as well try reasoning with a wounded cive t cat. I did what I did because I believed it was right. That I wa s making the world a better place."

"And now?"

It took him a few moments to answer. "And now I think maybe that wa s never even the point. Maybe I was out there just so a bunch of past y bureaucrats could feel tough and provide voters with the illusio n they're being protected. Or worse, maybe the politicians were jus t using me to stir up trouble so they could scare the American peopl e into giving them more power. At best, my life didn't mean anything a t all. At worst.. ." His voice trailed off and he took a sip from hi s glass. "Well, no point in dwelling on the worst, right?"

Karen didn't seem to have a response, instead she just stood ther e staring at him. On the bright side, she didn't look like she wa s afraid anymore. He was starting to get tired of people being afraid.

"We should get rid of the car," she said finally.

"What?"

"If I were Strand, I'd be calling the police with a description an d telling them you're a terrorism suspect and that if anyone sees you , they should tail you and get on the phone to Homeland Security. Th e Cadillac's not exactly subtle."

"Not a chance. That car's the one bright spot in my life right now.

I'll die in it before I get rid of it."

"Jesus Christ!" she shouted, surprising him enough to actually mak e him take a step back. "Maybe you could work with me a little, here!

You know, my life isn't all that hot right now either. A few week s ago, I was doing just fine. Sure, some of the guys on the force wer e chauvinistic assholes, but I was good at my job and all thei r complaining just looked pathetic. I was going to make captain one day , almost guaranteed. Hell, I might have even found a guy secure enoug h to marry me and have a few kids. But all that's gone now. These days , I need a PR firm working full time just to keep me from looking like a complete jerk-off! And on top of all that, now I'm running fro m killers hired by the government. It's been nice meeting you , asshole!"

For a moment, Fade thought she might take a swing at him, but sh e actually looked like she felt a little better after her outburst.

She was right, of course. He really had screwed her over. It was har d to dwell on that, though, in light of how fun his day had been. He'd killed Roy Buckner with an ejector seat, shot blanks at Hillel Strand's men with a trunk-mounted machine gun, and secured a temporary ally wh o was beautiful, smart, and tough as nails. It was by far the best da y he'd had in years.

"Yeah, you're right, Karen. I'm sorry "

"Shut up! I'm not finished!" she said, jabbing a finger in the ai r toward him. "What gives you the right to go around trying to kil l people who piss you off? That's not the way people resolve disputes , Fade."

"Actually, it is. In fact, it's what I used to do for a living .. ."

A frustrated scream erupted from her throat and she turned away , walking toward his makeshift bedroom. "Just .. . just leave me alone.

I need to think. Okay?"

"Hey, I understand. It's been a tough day. We're both a littl e tense.

You know what always makes me feel better in situations like this? A q uickie."

She stopped suddenly enough to make it look like she'd run into a n invisible wall. "What did you say?"

"You know, a little roll in the hay. Admit it. It always helps put a new perspective on things."

"Are you .. . are you crazy? I just killed a man and you're .. . y ou're .. ."

It appeared that she was now so angry that she couldn't even finish he r own sentences. On the other hand, she hadn't actually said no. Fad e felt his mood improve even more. "No point reliving ancient history , Karen."

"It was a couple of hours ago!" Her habit of talking through a clenched jaw when she was angry had kind of a seductive quality t o it.

"An hour. A year. A decade. No one ever got anywhere constantl y dredging up the past. Well, except historians .. ."

Another frustrated squeal and then she stalked through the door , slamming it hard enough to knock a piece off the jamb.

"And paleontologists," he called. "I guess paleontologists probably d o okay."

"Shut up!" came her muffled answer through the door.

He grinned and found a more or less comfortable place on the floo r where he lay down and closed his eyes. For the first time he coul d remember, he actually felt like he could sleep. Not just lie there , drifting in and out of half-realized dreams, but actually sleep.

Things were looking up.

Fade jerked awake, not sure where he was. It took a few seconds fo r him to shake off his uncharacteristic grogginess and when he did, h e half expected to be surrounded by cops with shotguns or pian o wire-wielding government agents. The room was empty, though, and th e only sound was from the television filtering through the closed door t o his bedroom.

He pushed himself to his feet and stretched, yawning wildly. Th e improvement in his right leg had ground to a depressing halt and h e couldn't bring himself to look down at it. There was nothing he coul d do, so there was no point thinking about it. He'd always known thi s was coming and now it was real not just some ghost waiting to jump ou t at him when he let his guard down.

He concentrated on steadying his gait as he made his way over to th e closed door and poked his head inside. Karen was sitting on a futo n that took up most of the floor, transfixed by the littl e black-and-white television in front of her.

"Are we on TV?"

She held a hand out for silence. "They found her."

"Who?"

"Stephany Narwal."

"Who's that?" he said, moving around so he could better see th e screen.

"The missing woman. They found her body."

"Oh, right. I forgot. You were working on that case."

"It's always the same," she said, more to herself than to him. "Th e naked body always shows up lying in a wooded area of Virginia exactl y sixteen days after the woman disappeared .. ."

"So?"

"So this is fourteen days. And she was found hanging from a tree , burned." Karen looked up at him. "These guys just don't change th e way they do things. They have a program ..."

"You want a beer? They're war "

"Do you have a phone?"

He tossed her his, then watched her jab at the keypad.

"John! What the hell's going on?"

Fade wandered back into the other room and dug a beer from under th e sink, half listening to her side of the conversation.

"You've got to be kidding me. A note? Are you going to be able to ge t anything from it? Uh huh. But you're sure it's him .. . Come on , that's not funny. You're serious. Christ. Me? No, everything's great. Why wouldn't it be? Uh huh. All right. Get him, okay?"

Fade leaned against the doorjamb and watched her drop her phone on th e bed next to her.

"You're not going to believe this," she said.

"What?"

"You know why he changed his MO?"

Fade shook his head.

"He's jealous."

"Of?"

"You."

"I don't get it."

She repositioned herself so she could look up at him more easily.

"You've got to understand that this guy lives for media attention. I n his mind, he's famous, powerful.. . the most feared man in America.

And then you come along and all of a sudden, you're all over the TV b eing portrayed as this incredibly dangerous psychopath a man who ca n kill an entire SWAT team without even breaking a sweat. Suddenly, h e looks kind of pathetic ..."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm not. So now he's upping the ante trying to upstage you. Do yo u know what that means?"

"Not really."

"Everything he's done so far has been planned down to the last detail.

But now he's deviating from that plan. He could make a mistake."

Fade popped the top off his beer, holding it away from him in case i t sprayed. "Well, good luck to him. I don't live for media attention.

The crazier he gets the less scrutiny I have to deal with."

She suddenly looked like he'd shot her cat. "What?"

"They think he's already got his new girl, right the one wh o disappeared a few days ago? With the media all fired up and the ne w leads, the cops are going to throw everything they have at finding hi m before he kills her. It'll take some pressure off. Hell, if the cop s saw me on the street, they'd probably just let me go. How would i t look if they caught me now? They'd get crucified for using manpower t o get revenge on someone who killed their friends while some girl i s dying a horrible death." He took a pull from his beer. "Now I ca n keep my car for sure."

"Your car? Your car? What about that girl? What about what she's going through? And what about the girl who's next?"

Fade shrugged "Women die every day all over the world, Karen, and the y do it in ways so terrifying this guy can't even imagine it. Why aren't we crying for them?"

Chapter Forty-Three.

"I just wanted to remind you that I'm still out here, Hillel. And I'm coming for you."

Strand slammed the phone down, the sound of cracking plastic amplifyin g the throbbing in his head, and then deleted the message. He had al l his calls coming through Lauren and when she'd told him al Fayed was o n the phone, he'd refused to take it. Why the fuck would she put hi m into voice mail? f He reached for the phone again, preparing to dial Matt Egan for wha t must have been the hundredth time, but instead stood and turned towar d the window and tried to slow his breathing.

The situation had gone from being virtually solved to deterioratin g almost beyond hope. Buckner's corpse and car had been removed an d would never be found, but Strand couldn't put the description of th e ex-soldier's body out of his mind. Buckner hadn't been shot, or eve n efficiently knifed. He appeared to have been beaten to death with som e sort of heavy, blunt instrument. During Banes's report, it had bee n impossible not to picture al Fayed, spattered with blood and bon e fragments, smashing a hammer against Buckner's skull while h e fantasized about his real objective.

Strand folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on his desk , trying to concentrate on the view outside his window, but not reall y seeing it.

Karen Manning had completely disappeared, leaving only an empty vehicl e behind. It seemed certain that she'd been told everything and ha d heard Buckner's side of their phone conversation. The fact that sh e hadn't resurfaced suggested that she was with al Fayed, perhaps seein g him a protector. Right now she would be confused and frightened, bu t her uncertainty wouldn't last forever. She was a highly recognizabl e former cop from a prominent family, making it unlikely that she woul d run. Her options at this point were the police, the press, or he r father. He was covering all three.

Finally, Strand reached for the phone and dialed Egan's number again , and, again, got a recording prompting him to leave a message.

This couldn't be happening. Everything he'd worked for, everythin g he'd accomplished all balancing on the actions of a psychotic nav y grunt and a disgraced street cop.

Matt Egan walked silently through the long grass separating two smal l houses and came out onto the sidewalk. Karen Manning's home wa s directly across the street, still completely dark except for a dim lam p next to the door.

He'd been scouring the neighborhood thoroughly enough that he wa s starting to worry that someone would notice and call the police. So far nothing. It seemed likely that Manning had gone out and that Ro y Buckner had followed. Which left him with nothing to do but wait.

Pointlessly, probably. He seriously doubted Fade was going to show u p there and if he did it wouldn't be to find Manning, it would be to fin d him.

Egan was beginning to wonder how much longer was he going to be able t o play this game. His day at home, instead of helping his stress level , had done the exact opposite. He wasn't sure how much waiting he wa s going to be able to stand before he just called Fade to suggest a meeting place. Somewhere to finish this thing.

His phone began vibrating in his pocket and he retrieved it, glancin g at the number before answering.

"Hey, Billy. Tell me you've got some good news."

"I wish. Look, man, you've got to call Hillel."

"Not now."

"Please, Matt. He's going nuts. I can't keep him out of my office an d with him hanging over my shoulder I can't help you."

Egan let out a long breath. "Fine. Patch me through."

"I owe you one."

There was a click on the line and then Strand's voice, soundin g uncharacteristically weak.

"Matt, we've got to talk."

"Go ahead."

"Not over the phone. In person. I want you to come in."

"No."

"Look, we've got to get on the same page here. This is getting way to o dangerous for us not to be working together. I know I've made som e mistakes, but there are some developments that you need to be awar e of."

Egan considered that for a moment. He'd never trusted Strand, but h e was right that the feud they'd developed wasn't exactly productive.

"Fine. Meet me in the parking lot of the Tyson's Corner mall in fron t of Nordstrom in two hours."

"You know I can't do that, Matt. Al Fayed could be " To his credit, h e shut up when he remembered that Egan had been on the street since thi s thing started.

"Your call, Hillel. Good-bye."

"Wait! Wait .. . You win. I'll be there."

Chapter Forty-Four.

"Could you just put me into his voice mail?" Karen Manning said int o Fade's phone.

"Your father's in his office, Karen. He'll want to talk to you .. ."

"No, I just want to leave a message. I'm .. . I'm about to walk into a meeting and I don't have time to talk right now."

She watched Fade tape off the Cadillac's chrome bumper while he r father's secretary silently fretted. His limp seemed to be getting a little less noticeable and his mood continued to improve. Or maybe i t would be more accurate to say it was on a very delicate upswing.

"Okay, Karen. I'll put you straight into it, but you insisted , right?"

"I insisted."

She waited for the beep and then began speaking in a calculatedl y cheerful voice. "Daddy? I'm afraid I'm going to be tied up for th e next couple of days and I'm not going to be able to do any mor e appearances. Could you tell your PR people to try to carry on withou t me and that I'll call them as soon as I can? And maybe we could ge t together this weekend for dinner? Anyway, I'll chat with you in a couple of days .. ."

She turned off the phone, hoping she'd been convincing, and then wen t back to watching Fade. She still wasn't sure who he was or where sh e stood with him. He wasn't a psychopath of that she was certain. A s ociopath? Maybe, but after hearing his story, it was easy to se e where his rage and lack of conventional morality came from. Was a person who killed legally at the whim of politicians any less a murderer than someone who killed for revenge or personal gain? Had h e been completely reasonable in assuming that she and her team were a mortal danger to him? And if so, had he been justified in protectin g himself? What would she have done in his place?

She shook her head and forced herself to clear it of anything tha t didn't directly relate to getting herself out of this mess.

"I think the green was a mistake," he said, glancing up at her. "Wha t about pink with a big skull and crossbones on the hood?"

"So, kind of a Mary Kay saleswoman from hell feel?"

"Buy this lipstick or your family gets it."

"Can we talk for a minute?"

He ignored her question, instead concentrating on staying away from th e front gun mounts while taping off the headlights.

"Fade?"

"Have you ever had a fun conversation that started with 'can we tal k for a minute?""

"I guess not," she conceded. "Look. You seem like an all-right gu y for a mass murderer "

"Thanks."

"But you understand that I'm not looking to be half of Bonnie an d Clyde."

He moved on to the gleaming chrome of the front grill. "You were th e one driving, Karen. You could have pointed the car anywhere yo u wanted. I wasn't stopping you."

"I'm not saying you were. I mean, I'm in a little bit of a bind her e and I'm not sure who to turn to. It seems likely that Strand i s covering the press and the police .. ."

"FBI?" he said, refusing to look at her.

"I thought about that, but let's face it, the lines between Homelan d Security and the FBI are pretty blurry these days."

"What about your dad? Isn't he Bill Gates or something?"

"There's no way I'm getting him involved in this. No way."

He smiled. "Sounds like you're stuck with me then."

"Fade .. ."

Finally, he stood and turned toward her. "Look, Karen, we have th e same problem: Hillel Strand. You're a good investigator, right? An d let's face it, I'm a good killer. Why not put those abilities togethe r and solve the problem?"

"Because I'm not a murderer. And even if I was, we wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting him. He's got all the resource s in the world and we've got nothing."

Fade nodded, disappointed but obviously not surprised. "I assume thi s is leading to some kind of point?"

"More like an observation. The only reason Hillel Strand wants me dea d is to keep all this quiet."

"So?"

"So we need to get it out into the open."

Fade turned and started wrapping tape around the car's antenna. "Yo u said it yourself, Karen. They're going to be watching the media an d they're going to threaten them with all kinds of Patriot Act bullshi t to keep this quiet."

"I agree. We've got to get around the mainstream press."

"The National Enquirer? Salam al Fayed is the father of my alien lov e child?"

She frowned deeply. "The Internet."

Fade stopped taping. "No."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Because as much as secrecy helps Hillel, it helps me, too.

If this all goes public, it's going to be impossible for me to ge t anywhere near him or Matt. They'll end up transferred to Antarctica o r put in the witness protection program or something. No way. Shining a light on this thing just makes my job harder."

"Your job? What job is that, Fade? Shooting them? I don't care abou t your stupid revenge. This is my life!"

His limp seemed to get worse again as he moved around to the other sid e of the car, reminding her of the paralysis that was slowly spreadin g from his injured spine.

"I'm .. . I'm sorry Fade. I can't even imagine how I'd feel if I wa s in your position. I'd probably be doing the same thing. But as a n outsider looking in, I can tell you that killing them isn't going t o undo what's been done. What about this? What if I promise you tha t we'll put those assholes in jail? How would that be?"

Fade didn't seem impressed. "I never wanted any of this to happen t o you, Karen. I know it's my fault. But.. ." his voice trailed off.

"I know."

| She kept wracking her brain, trying to find a way out for Fade. No I matter how she twisted the problem, though, she always came to a dea d r end. The fact that he'd killed a bunch of cops, half poisoned a n entire division of Homeland Security, and then tried to shoot up a hospital wa s | inescapable. But what if, by some miracle, he managed to beat thos e charges? By the time he made his way through the courts, would he b e strapped into a mechanical wheelchair unable to move or speak? Sh e tried i to look into his face, but then just turned away and stared a t a cracked brick wall.

"Okay," he said, finally breaking the silence between them.

"Hypothetically speaking, what are we talking about?"

Chapter Forty-five.

Egan turned off his headlights, navigating entirely by the glow comin g off the closed shopping mall. When he coasted up behind a lone ca r parked at the far edge of the lot, three men stepped out.

Hillel Strand was careful to stay safely between Banes and Despain , moving his head in jerky, birdlike movements as they approached th e passenger-side door that Egan had thrown open. Strand slid silentl y into the seat, but when Banes grabbed the handle to the back door h e found it locked.

"Just you," Egan said.

Strand seemed uncertain for a moment, though it was hard to read hi s expression through the semidarkness and the lingering effects of Fade's birthday surprise. Finally he nodded and Egan pressed the accelerator , aiming the car at the road that circled the mall. He kept his eyes o n the rearview mirror, but Banes and Despain just disappeared back int o their car and stayed there.

"So what's important enough to make you crawl out from under your des k to tell me?"

Strand ignored the insult. "We need to put our differences behind us , Matt. We aren't going to get through this otherwise."

"I'm listening."

"Have you spoken to the director yet?"

Egan shook his head.

"After the attacks on us at our office and the hospital, his staff's all over me. You made a mistake going in there and throwing th e haz-mat people out "

Egan started to laugh and Strand held his hand out in a n uncharacteristically submissive call for silence. "I'm not trying t o allocate blame here, Matt. All I'm trying to say is that it's a situation we're going to have to deal with. Crenshaw wants to know ho w you knew it wasn't a biological attack. We're moving forward with th e story that you spoke to the doctors when you were at the hospital an d they told you it was chemical. Obviously, I've made serious mistakes , too ..."

There was something in his tone that suggested he wasn't talking abou t his general stupidity for getting them into this situation bu t something more specific and recent.

"After you shook Roy Buckner loose, I put him on Karen Manning," Stran d continued. "It was kind of a wild hunch but I thought al Fayed migh t try to contact her."

Egan frowned but caught himself before it became deep enough for Stran d to see it in the intermittent light. He didn't know that Lauren ha d spilled the beans about the censuring of the police files and he wasn't going to mention the fact that his "wild hunch" was based on a numbe r of taped phone conversations between Manning and Fade. Hardly a goo d start to trying to bring the trust back to their relationship.

"And?"

"The hunch paid off. Buckner called me and told me he had Fade i n custody at a trailhead outside D. C. He also told me that he had bee n too late to save Karen Manning. That al Fayed had killed her."

Egan tightened his grip on the wheel in an effort not to wrap the m around Strand's neck. There was no way in hell Fade had gone afte r Karen Manning.

"If that woman's dead, Hillel, I swear to God I'm go "

"She's not dead!" Strand said, some of the anger Egan was accustome d to creeping into his voice. "Let me finish! When I talked to Buckner , he sounded .. . strange. You were right about him. He was unstable ..

."

"Jesus Christ, Hillel. Get to the point. What happened?"

Strand avoided the question, staying with a narrative that sounded a bit over rehearsed "He told me where he was and I sent Banes an d De-spain right away. When they got there, al Fayed and Manning wer e driving up the road. They got away."

Egan let out a long, slow breath. "And Buckner?"

"Dead."

Strand settled back in the seat, apparently finished, and let Egan tr y to absorb what he'd been told.

Of course it was all bullshit. Hillel had been concerned that Fade ha d told Manning his story and he'd realized that he was in a position t o kill them both a tidy little murder/suicide that wouldn't generate to o many questions. Except Buckner had fucked it up. So now Strand ha d the director's staff starting to dig, Fade still breathing down hi s neck, and Karen Manning wondering what to do about the fact that sh e had government contractors trying to kill her. Lovely.

Egan's phone rang and he grabbed it off the dash.

"What?"

"Matt! Thank God." Bill Fraiser's voice.

"Hang on." He put in his earpiece as Strand looked on. "What's up?"

"First of all, Hillel seems to be gone and so are his goons. I don't know where, but according to my sources he actually left the building.

Watch your back it would take something major to get him out o f here."

"I got it covered, thanks "

"Wait! Are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sitting down?"

"Uh huh."

"He used one of his credit cards."

Egan felt a weak jolt of adrenaline probably all he had left but kep t his voice passive. "Go on."

"He must be running low on cash. We've got a charge from Computer Cit y and from a store that sells auto paint."

"Details?"

"A couple hundred bucks at the Computer City, but I'm having som e trouble getting a list of the items he bought. On the brighter side , the guy at the auto store remembered him. He's apparently going fo r burgundy."

"Where?"

"It's up near Baltimore, but I may be able to do better. There wa s another charge from an Internet service provider. They're closed righ t now but I'm trying to get the owner at home. If al Fayed signed up fo r access he'd have to give his physical address."

"Hang on a second," Egan said, leaning over and throwing open th e passenger-side door. A hard shove, combined with a sharp left turn , sent Strand flying out onto the pavement. Egan watched him tumble to a stop in the rearview mirror and aimed the car at the mall exit.

"Sorry, Billy. Now what were you saying?"

Chapter Forty-Six.

Karen Manning leaned back against the futon and tapped a few mor e sentences into Fade's laptop. A couple years ago, she'd taken an adul t education class on Web programming a horrible ordeal that she'd stuc k with solely because of the mild crush she'd developed on th e instructor. And while things hadn't worked out with him, she ha d managed to create a rather pathetic but more or less functional We b site that earned her the only C she'd ever received. Particularl y humiliating in light of the fact that she was sleeping with th e professor when the final grades were posted. If she'd known that he r life might someday depend on her programming skills, she'd have spen t less time messing around and more time studying.

Glancing out the open door, she saw Fade in the same position he'd bee n in for the last hour: sitting on the floor with his back wedged into a corner staring blankly at the wall. He'd finally agreed to her pla n and then plunged with startling speed into a semicatatonic depressio n that she knew she was responsible for. He saw what she was doing a s the end of any chance he might have had to get the men who ha d destroyed his life and she couldn't help feeling a pang of irrationa l guilt at putting a stop to his spree. Insanity, it seemed, wa s contagious.

"What were the dates you worked for that CIA front company, Fade? An d who exactly did you report to?"

He adjusted his gaze from the wall to her but didn't answer.

"Fade? Can you focus for a minute?"

"You're going to piss a lot of people off with this stuff, Karen.

Everything you're writing about is heavily classified. Why don't w e just kill them?"

"We're not killing anyone, Fade. So just let it go, okay? Come on , this is a great piece of revenge. Not only is it going to completel y screw Hillel Strand, but it's going to get your story out there fo r everyone to see. But if we don't tell the whole story completel y straight those assholes will use every inaccuracy and omission t o destroy our credibility."

He pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room, disappearing fro m her line of sight. A moment later she heard the television go on.

"Fade, turn off the TV and come in here. I can't do this on my own."

Again, no answer.

She laid the laptop down next to an open copy of Building a Web Sit e for Dummies and walked to the doorway, flipping the light switch tha t controlled a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. "Fade?"

He pointed at the television and she walked up behind him, leaning ove r his shoulder to see.

"We now have confirmation that the man depicted here is Harold Logner , a suspect in the Collector case," a disembodied voice said as a shak y video that looked like it had been shot from a helicopter began t o play. It followed three police cruisers chasing a blue minivan wit h heavily tinted windows. One of the tires blew as the van swerved ont o a freeway off ramp and a moment later the driver was on foot, runnin g to the edge of the road and trying to climb down a concrete barrie r wall. He'd only made it about five feet when he lost his footing an d pitched over backward, falling a good twenty more before landing har d in a grassy median. The police were on foot now, too, with all but on e running back along the road to find a safe place to get down. Th e remaining cop was standing at the rail where Logner had gone over , watching his motionless body below. When Logner began to move agai n and then managed to get to his feet, the cop just jumped over the rail.

He fell almost thirty feet before landing directly on top of th e suspect, leaving both unconscious.

"Shit," Fade said, walking over to the sink and filling a pot wit h water. "You should have had that guy on your SWAT team."

The tape ended rather suddenly and the small screen filled with th e face of the news anchor. "I understand that we have a live feed at th e hospital where the suspect was taken."

The scene cut again and, instead of a reporter, the camera focused on a small man with neat hair and a meticulously groomed mustache lying in a hospital bed. His hands and left leg were covered with a blanket, bu t it was still obvious that they were secured to the metal rails alon g each side. His right leg was in a cast and was suspended above th e mattress with a cable.

He was squinting a bit against the lights being shined on him by wha t looked like every news crew in town, but otherwise appeared to be i n good spirits.

"Oh my God," Karen said quietly. "That's him? Fade, come and look!"

He seemed more interested in watching his water boil.

"As you can see," Logner said in a slightly effeminate voice, "th e police were a bit heavy-handed in apprehending me and I suffered a severely broken hip and leg as well as a hairline fracture to m y collarbone. That kind of violence by the government against it s citizens is absolutely unacceptable and I'm looking into lega l remedies."

"Since when do the cops let people like that do interviews?" Fad e said.

Karen kept her eyes glued to the television. It was a good question.

"I know what you are all wondering," Logner continued. "And the answe r is yes on both counts. I have Elizabeth Henrich and she's very muc h alive. Of course I'm not currently at liberty to disclose her locatio n ..."

"He's not even denying it," Karen said. "Jesus. It's really him. The y got him ..."

Fade dumped a box of mac and cheese into the water and moved to a position where he could see the screen.

"Ms. Henrich a lovely young lady, by the way has enough water t o survive for another few days. Though I suppose it's conceivable tha t she could live longer if she's careful .. ."

"What is it you're asking in return for information on he r whereabouts?" a reporter asked.

"I think it should be obvious. I want to be released and put on a plane to Brazil. When I get there and I've settled in, I'll happil y make her location public."

"You've got to be kidding!" Karen shouted, jumping to her fee t suddenly enough to almost catch Fade under his chin with the top of he r head. "I'm going to go down there and choke the life out of that so n of a bitch. Ten minutes and I'd wipe that condescending smile righ t off his face!"

"You seem kind of tense," Fade observed.

She spun, jerking to a stop with their noses about six inches apart.

"What?"

"This is a good thing, Karen. Right? They caught him. Even if thi s Henrich girl dies, there won't be a next one."

"What, were you an accountant in a previous life? This isn't los t money or spoiled produce, Fade. It's a girl's life!"

"Why don't we forget the mac and cheese," he suggested. "Go out. Hav e a few beers and a decent dinner. Get your mind off things."

"There's a woman slowly dying in some horrible prison that this frea k built for her and that makes you want to go out to eat?"

He shrugged. "A thousand people starve to death or die of thirst ever y day, Karen. I never let it keep me out of restaurants before."

She moved forward a little bit until their noses were almost touching.

"Is your point that I'm a hypocrite? Is that your point?"

He took a step back. "I don't have a point. No point at all."

She wanted to shout at him, to take a swing at him, to make him car e about that girl. But nothing she said was going to change the thing s he'd seen and done and suffered.

"I do what I can, Fade. There's only so much .. ."

He walked back to his corner and sat, fixing his eyes on the wal l across from him again. "I know. I did, too."

She just stood there, watching him sink into himself and trying t o untangle the flood of sensations washing over her. Exhaustion, fear , anger, elation, guilt.. .

"I'm not really crazy, you know," he said, as though he was talking t o the wall. "I'm just hopelessly, irretrievably fucked. It's not craz y to want to enjoy the time I have left."

She walked back into the bedroom, unable to look at him any longer.

It was like his life, what made him who he was, was just leaking away.

And there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

Pulling the computer back onto her lap, she tried to concentrate on th e screen but could barely see it. She'd be dead if it weren't for him.

Of course, it was his fault that she was involved at all but still, sh e couldn't shake a nagging sense of obligation.

"I'll tell you what," she said, leaning to the side far enough to se e him through the door. "Why don't you sit down with me and help m e finish writing the content for the Web site and then maybe we can hav e a few drinks and something decent to eat. Here, though, okay? I thin k it makes sense to stay under cover as much as we can."

Chapter Forty-Seven.

Most of the spotlights bolted to the decaying brick buildings wer e broken, adding to the post-Armageddon atmosphere and making i t difficult not to trip over the debris littering the ground. Ega n continued carefully forward, getting close enough to read the buildin g number on an old machine shop and confirming that he was still movin g in the right direction.

The road came to a T and he took a deep breath before running across a n exposed thirty-foot stretch and slipping behind a Dumpster. His hear t was pounding harder than could be justified by the brief burst of spee d and he stayed there for a moment, willing it to slow. The building s lining either side of the street gave the impression of bunkerlike min i storage units. There were no windows and no conventional doors in an y of them -just a single metal garage-type door centered in eac h facade.

Egan leaned around the Dumpster and squinted at another number, the n ducked back under cover. Billy had called him an hour ago with th e address obtained from the Internet service provider Fade had signed u p with. It was less than thirty feet away.

His heart rate rose again and he cursed silently to himself. This ha d just never been his thing. Fade used to say that combat focused hi m made him forget all the bullshit the modern world crowded into hi s mind. As far as Egan was concerned, though, combat was all about bein g cold , wet, and scared while people tried to kill you. And all for less tha n you could make working at a gas station.

He rolled onto his stomach and focused on the second door on his right.

It was closed and there was no light bleeding around it, but tha t didn't necessarily mean anything. Were Fade and Karen Manning inside?

Or was it a trap? Fade might have recognized the hopelessness of hi s situation and used his credit card to bring his enemies to him. I n fact, he might be standing on the building across the street with on e of those stock hunting rifles he'd used to such effect all over th e world.

Despite the darkness and unseasonably cool temperatures, Egan coul d feel the sweat beginning to run down his back. Realistically, he ha d two options. He could wait there and hope Fade showed his face befor e morning, when people would undoubtedly be curious as to why there was a guy with a gun behind their Dumpster. Or he could go get his car an d use it as a battering ram against the garage door in hope that he coul d surprise his old friend.

After careful consideration, Egan came to the conclusion that, whil e both plans sucked, the first sucked slightly less.

His shoulders were beginning to ache and he lay out flat, resting hi s cheek on the hand not wrapped around his gun. A little bit of luck.

That's all he needed. Just a little bit of luck.

After about half an hour of complete silence, his phone bega n vibrating. He checked the incoming number nervously, expecting it t o be Fade informing him that he had his scope all lined up and was abou t to put a bullet through his skull, but it turned out just to b e Billy.

"What?" Egan whispered.

"Al Fayed used his card again! About twenty minutes ago. A grocer y store a couple miles from you."

Egan relaxed a bit at the realization that Fade probably wasn't withi n rifle range.

"What did he buy?"

"Dunno. Damn store closed right after he used it. But he spen t fifty-eight bucks."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Hillel just got back to the office he looks like he got beat up o r something, but he's not talking so I have no idea what happened .. .

Anyway, his goons are here too and they look available. You want me t o send them out to back you up?"

Egan let out a quiet breath. In theory it would have been nice to hav e a couple of talented operators on the rooftops, but based on his las t meeting with Strand, it seemed likely that he would accept nothing les s than the deaths of both Fade and Karen Manning. It might have als o occurred to him that it would be fairly convenient if Egan ended u p shot, too. He knew a little more than Strand would be comfortable wit h and would make a more compliant scapegoat if he were a corpse.

No, the worst case scenario for him would be getting killed alongsid e Fade. If he was destined to die here tonight, he wanted to go ou t knowing that Fade would continue to chase Hillel around until one o f them dropped. Vindictive? Sure. But he had a right.

"No. I'll deal with this myself."

"Are you sure, Matt? I mean, I know you did okay at the hospital bu t last time this guy had a home field advantage an entire SWAT team ende d up dead."

"Thanks for reminding me, Billy. I feel a lot better now. Really."

"I just don't want anything to happen to you, man."

"Look, I'll give you a call in an hour to check in. If you don't hea r from me .. . well, you're probably not going to."

He turned off the phone and inched to his right a bit, replacing hi s view of Fade's building with a view of the only street leading up t o it.

Another half hour passed before a high-pitched metallic rattle becam e audible. The sound continued to get louder as whatever was making i t moved closer, and Egan concentrated on keeping his breathing even an d his family out of his head.

The dark shape that began to emerge from around the corner wa s initially unidentifiable but the sound it made was strangely familiar.

A shopping cart. His educated guess was confirmed when the light fro m the machine shop glinted off it.

The man pushing it was wearing a baseball cap that shaded his face an d a formless jacket that effectively hid his build. He seemed to b e leaning a little harder on the cart than he should have been and stil l his limp was plainly evident. Egan had noticed Fade favoring his righ t leg at Elise's show. Was it him?

He pulled back, pressing himself against the Dumpster and watching i n his peripheral vision as the man passed by. The disguise and poo r light weren't enough to obscure the face that had been so prominent i n Egan's mind for the past two weeks. Fade.

His back was turned as he wrestled the heavy cart up onto the curb an d Egan silently aimed his pistol. It was the smart move a littl e pressure on the trigger and Fade would never know what hit him. Th e great Salam al Fayed would crumple to the ground behind his shoppin g cart, shot in the back by his best friend.

He was fishing in his pocket now, finally coming up with a garage doo r opener. Shoot, Egan told himself. His finger wouldn't move. The doo r began to grind upward and Fade took a position behind the cart again.

Most of the road between them was covered with gravel that would make a hell of a lot of noise if Egan tried to run up from behind. He coul d just aim over the Dumpster and yell, but with the distance and weir d light it seemed likely that Fade could safely dive for cover and star t shooting back. Not really ideal.

The door was about halfway up when it began to start jerking agains t its rusted rails, the sound of screeching metal filling the air. I t was loud, but was it loud enough?

Egan broke from cover, opting for speed over stealth and made it t o within ten feet before Fade spun and found himself staring into th e barrel of a gun. His hand had stopped mere inches from the pistol gri p sticking out of his waistband.

"Matt, you sneaky son of a bitch. It was the credit cards, wasn't it?

That pot smoking, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing asshole Syd gave me up."

Egan concentrated on keeping his gun steady as he moved sideways , maintaining a marginally safe distance.

"Where's your backup?"

"Just me," Egan said.

"I'm insulted."

"Let's have the gun, Fade. Really slow. Seriously."

He lifted the 9mm with his thumb and forefinger and tossed it on th e ground.

"Where's your girlfriend?"

"Karen? Actually, I don't think she likes me all that much."

"Where is she, Fade?"

"You sent that freak Roy Buckner after me and ordered Karen dead. I d on't think I'm going to tell you shit about where she is."

"Yeah, Fade. I got involved with fucking Roy Buckner. Look around.

It's just you and me here. I could have come with an army. I coul d have shot you in the back when you walked by. I could shoot yo u now."

It may have been just a subtle shift in the light but Fade's fac e suddenly seemed to lose all expression. "Do it, then."

"Put your hands on top of your head and turn around."

He did as he was told and Egan inched forward, giving the shopping car t a quick glance as he passed by. A couple of steaks, two potatoes, a hibachi a bottle of wine, and a bag of what looked like women's clothes.

"Having a party?"

"They say you should live every day like it's your last. Particularl y good advice in my case, don't you think?"

Egan waved him inside and followed a few feet behind.

"Nice car," he said as they skirted around an old Cadillac that ha d been taped off but not painted. There was an open door at the back o f the bay that led to a grimy little room with an uneven wood floor an d bare brick walls. The only furniture was a chair and an old footlocke r with a small television on it. There was a single door to their right , but it was closed.

"Hello?" Egan called as Fade stopped in the middle of the room. "Ms.

Manning?"

He moved toward the door, keeping his gun trained on Fade, and took a position along the wall next to it. He wasn't sure what to expect fro m Karen Manning. Based on her experience with Buckner, she was probabl y a little suspicious of men with guns.

He reached for the knob and threw the door open, withdrawing his han d as quickly as he could. Nothing.

"Ms. Manning?"

Still nothing.

He allowed himself a cautious peek around the jamb and was surprised t o see her sitting motionless on a mattress. Her back was pressed u p against a pipe that ran from floor to ceiling and her hands wer e cranked behind it. There was a piece of duct tape stuck over he r mouth.

"What's up with this?" Egan said, backing slowly into the room wit h his gun still trained on Fade. Maybe his old friend really was losin g it. The thought of him keeping Karen Manning tied to a pipe didn't really jibe with the Fade he'd known.

Egan moved back a few more steps and began running his hand blindl y along the wall, searching for the pipe Karen was secured to. A momen t later, he felt the unmistakable sensation of a gun barrel being presse d to the back of his head.

"If I've learned anything in life," Fade said, lowering his hands , "it's that women can be treacherous creatures."

"Ms. Manning," Egan said as he listened to her stand up on th e mattress and rip the tape from her mouth. "I know this is going to b e hard to believe, but I'm one of the good guys."

"I know all about you, Matt. And about Hillel Strand and Roy Buckner.

Now I'd appreciate it if you'd drop your gun."

"That thing with Roy ... I had nothing to do with it. Hell, ask Fade.

Ask him if he really believes that I'd get involved with Buckner."

"Don't look at me," Fade said, stepping into the doorway and lookin g down at the gun Egan still had aimed at his chest. "I have no power o f persuasion over this woman. I've been trying to get her in the sac k since I met her. Nada."

"I'm going to tell you one more time, Mr. Egan. Drop your gun or I'm going to kill you like I killed your friend."

"He wasn't my friend!" Egan said emphatically. "And I've got to tel l you, I'm a little reluctant to drop my gun. Fade's made his intention s pretty clear where I'm concerned."

Again, his options were less than stellar. He could definitely shoo t Fade, but that would almost certainly end with the back of his hea d being blown off. Or he could drop the gun, which Fade would probabl y then pick up and use to blow off the front of his head. Any way h e looked at it, his skull ended up in more than one piece.

"I'm going to count to three, Mr. Egan. And then you're dead. On e ..."

"Okay! Fine. I'm putting it down." He crouched and set the gun o n the floor, then slowly stood again, raising his arms in the air.

The pressure of the gun disappeared and Karen stepped cautiously awa y from him, then began gathering up a laptop and the papers strewn aroun d it. She kept the gun aimed in his general direction but didn't see m terribly worried about him now that he was unarmed and Fade wa s advancing toward him.

"So what do you have to say for yourself, Matt?"

"I don't know. What do you want to hear?"

"You should have killed me when you had the chance. Another ba d decision in a lifetime of them, huh?"

Egan shrugged. "What, am I supposed to start begging now? Fuc k you."

Fade took another step forward and Egan glanced over at Karen to se e that she seemed to have everything she wanted cradled in her left ar m while she used the right to once again aim directly at him.

So there wasn't a lot he could do other than double over and try not t o throw up when Fade slammed a fist into his stomach.

"Stop it!" he heard her shout. Based on her tone, he decided that sh e wouldn't mind if he dodged the blow about to come down on the back o f his head. A quick shift of his weight and Fade's hand sped harmlessl y past his ear. The momentum caused Fade's normally flawless balance t o fail him and he pitched forward just in time for Egan to straighten an d catch him under the chin with the back of his head.

"Damn it!" Karen shouted. "I said "

Egan ignored her and rammed Fade back into the wall. With his righ t leg barely able to support his weight, Fade wasn't anywhere near a s fast or powerful as he used to be, giving Egan an even chance a t actually winning this fight. And while it probably wouldn't save him , at least he'd go down swinging.

The impact with the wall didn't produce the effect that he had hope d for and less than a second later, Fade brought both hands down on hi s shoulders with enough force to drive him to his knees.

Egan managed to catch Fade's right arm before he could land anothe r blow and he jerked down on it. The maneuver worked and Fade's bad le g crumpled beneath him, spinning him around before he could catch himsel f and leaving Egan with a clear shot at his lower back. He cocked a fist, concentrating on the place in Fade's spine where he knew th e bullet was lodged, and then hesitated. He didn't see the elbow comin g until it connected with his temple.

A moment later he found himself on his back, blinking hard and tryin g to focus as Fade straddled his torso and landed a hard right cros s against his cheek.

"How's that beautiful, brilliant wife of yours, Matt?"

Egan raised his arms and managed to partially deflect Fade's secon d punch.

"After her concert, did you go back with her to your great house an d kiss your daughter good night? Did you?"

He reached out to grab Fade's shirt, but didn't have the strength lef t to grip it. The third blow got him in the other cheek and he realize d it didn't even hurt anymore.

"Fade!" he heard Karen shout again. "I said stop!"

There was a strange shimmer on Fade's face and Egan squinted, trying t o focus. Tears. They were tears.

A moment later Karen Manning appeared behind Fade and swung the butt o f her gun into the side of his head. Not hard, but hard enough to ti p him over onto the floor and leave him too dazed to get up.

"I just don't need this crap today," she said, shoving the gun into he r waistband and grabbing him by the collar. Egan tried to stay consciou s as she dragged Fade from the room, but his peripheral vision ha d already gone dark. Finally, he just laid his head on the floor an d drifted off.

Chapter Forty-Eight.

"Geez .. . What the hell did you do that for?" Fade said, rubbing th e back of his head with a distended pout on his face.

Karen tore the brown paper off the side view mirror and accelerated ou t of the industrial park, matching the speed limit exactly as she heade d for the highway. The car had been conspicuous before, but now tape d for painting, it was like a neon sign flashing "Call the police!" Than k God it was dark.

"Oh stop. I barely even touched you."

"Barely touched me? I think I may have a concussion."

"Are all SEALS this whiny?"

"Damnit, Karen! I had him!"

When she glanced over, he started rubbing his head again in an obviou s attempt to make her feel guilty. "Had him? You had him? Give me a break. What exactly was it you were you going to do?"

"You know what I was going to do!" he shouted loud enough to briefl y drown out the sound of the wind blowing through the convertible. Hi s anger seemed a little forced. "I haven't made a secret out of m y plans. If you want to interfere, maybe you ought to just pull the ca r over and get the hell out."

She changed lanes, examining the rearview mirror as she did so.

There was no one at all on the road behind them. "Who are you tryin g to convince here, Fade? Me or yourself? You weren't going to kil l him."

"Was too."

"Don't make me use the ejector seat."

He crossed his arms and sulked with such self-conscious intensity tha t it actually made her smile. Who would have thought anything could d o that tonight?

"Okay," he said finally. "So it was a little harder than I thought.

But I was going to get around to it."

"Uh-huh. You know why you won that fight?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that when your leg gave out he had a clear shot at you r spine and he didn't take it. Did you ever think maybe it's time fo r you two to have an adult conversation? I want to help you, Fade. I r eally do. But who am I? An unemployed former cop. Based on wha t you've told me about Egan, he's heavily connected and I think when pus h comes to shove, he's going to come down on your side of this thing."

Fade remained silent for almost a minute. "All right. Fine. I'l l agree to temporarily put Matt on the back burner. But Strand's still a dead man."

Fade tried to ignore the feeling of Karen's eyes boring into him as h e got out of the car. Despite doing everything he could to try to mov e naturally, there was no obscuring the fact that the simple act o f standing was taking all his concentration. The numbness had sprea d upward and while he'd gotten pretty good at working around the leg , there wasn't much he could do to compensate for his sudden inability t o fully control the muscles in his back. Even with Egan's apparen t self-restraint, their fight had done enough damage that at least som e of it would never heal. Maybe tomorrow would be the day. Mayb e tomorrow he'd wake up to the start of an endless life of staring up a t the ceiling, motionless and alone.

He finally managed to pull himself to his feet and he moved awkwardl y around the car to where Karen was waiting. The windows of th e townhouse they were parked in front of were dark, as was the rest o f the neighborhood. Karen put an arm around his shoulders, subtl y helping to steady him as they moved toward the front door. When the y arrived on the porch, she raised her hand but didn't knock.

"What's wrong?" Fade said quietly.

"I ... I think maybe this was a mistake. I got freaked out and wasn't thinking straight. We just need to find somewhere I can get a coupl e quiet days to work .. ."

"Knock on the door, Karen."

"What are you talking about? You've been against this from th e beginning."

He rang the doorbell, grabbing her arm as she tried to back away. A l ight upstairs went on, partially illuminating her face. Oddly, it wa s as close to panic as he'd seen.

"No. We've got to go," she said when the porch light came on. He increased his grip, but if she really wanted to break free, it wouldn't have been difficult.

"Fade .. ."

"Let's just talk with him, Karen. Then, if you want, we can leave."

The door opened a crack and Fade saw half a face peering around it. A m oment later it was thrown wide open to reveal a man who didn't muc h look like the computer wizard Karen said he was. Instead of being fou r foot two, he was at least six-two, wearing cutoff camo shorts and a tank top over a tanned, fit body. Where were the polyester pants an d Star Trek T-shirt?

"Karen? Jesus Christ! What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, Jeff. Actually, I was just leaving."

"What are you talking about? Get in here."

She hesitated again, but then stepped across the threshold and gave hi m a long, exhausted hug. According to her, Jeff had been an instructo r at a computer class she'd taken and they'd dated for a while before a friendly break-up. Fade felt a pointless pang of jealousy that wa s probably weaker than it should have been. The truth was, Jeff looke d like an all right guy. And even if he wasn't, there was a good chanc e he was an improvement over a half-crippled mass murderer.

"I'm Jeff Grant," he said, reaching around Karen.

Fade shook his hand and stepped inside, trying to ignore the fact tha t his grip strength was noticeably off. He'd never really had problem s with his hands before.

"What the hell's going on, Karen?" Grant said as he led them into a spotless kitchen. "Are you all right? I can't believe what happene d to you. I tried to call .. ."

"I got your message. Thanks. It's been a little hectic .. ."

"A little hectic? Yeah, I guess so." He redirected his gaze towar d Fade. "I don't think I caught your name."

Fade remained silent while Karen chewed her lip. "That," she sai d finally, "is Salam al Fayed."

Predictably, Jeff's eyes widened and he took a step back. Actually, i t looked like he was going to try to back right out of the house, bu t Karen grabbed his hand. "It's okay jeff His reputation's a little bi t exaggerated."

"So ... he didn't wipe out your entire SWAT team?"

"No, he did. But it was an accident."

"An accident," he repeated.

Fade looked down at the floor. It seemed likely that this conversatio n was going nowhere as long as he was standing there. Grant seemed to b e looking for a window to jump out of.

"Hey, Jeff. Do you mind if I pull my car into your garage?"

He shook his head a little too energetically. "Do whatever yo u want."

Fade tore a long strip of paper from the Cadillac's bumper and tosse d it in a pile of trash growing in the middle of the floor. He'd lef t the door leading into the house open so he could hear, but so far ther e had been mostly silence. About halfway through the process of scrapin g the remaining tape off his windshield, Jeff's voice finally drifte d in.

"Shit, Karen. Is all this true?"

Fade lay down on the still-warm hood and stared blankly at the garag e door opener suspended from the ceiling.

"Yeah. It's true."

"Jesus .. ."

"Will you do it, Jeff? I'm having a lot of trouble with th e programming and the fact that I have to constantly look over m y shoulder isn't helping."

Silence.

"Jeff?"

"Man .. . Karen ... I mean we're friends and all, but a lot of thi s stuff has to be classified." He lowered his voice but the acoustics o f the house conspired against him.

"And he's .. . Well, he killed a bunch of cops, Karen! Do you kno w what you're asking me to get involved in?"

There was a rustling of papers. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I knew this was a mistake. It was totally unfair for me to "

"Hey, I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I'm just trying to think i t through, okay? I mean, they already tried to kill you, so they migh t do the same thing to me. And I'm not some SWAT chick with the Gri m Reaper for a bodyguard."

"It's not a big deal, Jeff. I "

"Okay," he said, cutting her off. "Fine. I'll do it."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah. But I've got to make sure I set it up in a way that it can't b e traced back to me. And then we've got to assume that the government i s going to try to shut it down the second it goes online ..." His voic e trailed off.

"How long before people can actually access it?"

"Programming will only take a couple hours, but getting it up will tak e longer. And then we'll have to send anonymous messages to the medi a and all the conspiracy theory boards pointing to it.. .."

Fade tried to motivate himself to get up and finish cleaning off th e car, but he couldn't find the energy. The truth was, he had missed hi s only chance at Hillel Strand. Even if he managed to concoct a brilliant plan to find him before Karen's Web site went live, h e couldn't move fast enough or shoot straight enough anymore to d o anything but get himself killed. And then there was Matt. It was tim e to just admit that there was no way he was ever going to pull th e trigger on the best friend he'd ever had.

In a few hours, Karen would be safe and she wouldn't need him anymore.

She'd go back to her family and try to straighten out the problems he'd caused her. So by midafternoon tomorrow, every reason he had to kee p breathing would have disappeared.

Chapter Forty-Nine.

Matt Egan filled a pillowcase from the ice machine, ignoring the stare s of a couple of kids dragging their suitcase down the stairs. He wen t back to his room and fell onto the bed, pressing the wet pillowcas e against his face.

And so ended yet another unsuccessful run in with the now infamou s Salam al Fayed. He wondered if he'd still be breathing if it hadn't been for Karen Manning's intervention. Not worth thinking about.

After a few minutes, he rolled off the bed and walked into th e bathroom, filling his mouth with water and then letting it run red bac k into the sink. What now? Karen Manning was clearly exerting a fai r amount of influence over Fade at this point. What was her plan? To use her considerable investigative skills to help Fade get Strand?

Unlikely. To go to the press? She'd have to know that the media wa s being covered. Her father? Maybe. He had juice, but he'd be covered , too, and Egan had a feeling that she would be hesitant to get he r family involved.

But eventually, she'd be compelled to make a move. She didn't seem th e type to run or to just hide forever in Fade's skirts.

He walked out of the bathroom, careful not to look at his swollen fac e in the mirror, and crawled back onto the bed. It turned out that lyin g on a floor unconscious wasn't a great substitute for a good night's sleep and he was just too tired to think about this right now.

He reached for the light switch but then changed his mind and bega n dialing his phone instead. He was way past due calling in and Bill y undoubtedly thought his boss was dead.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Billy. Guess who?"

"Matt! Oh my God! Are you all right?"

The connection wasn't very good and Egan winced in pain when he had t o press the phone harder to his ear. "I've been better, but I'm gonn a make it. Where are you? I can barely hear."

"I'm on the highway headed toward al Fayed's place to look for you."

"Really?" Egan said, genuinely surprised that his assistant would tak e that kind of risk for him.

"Yeah."

"Thanks, Billy. Seriously."

"Don't thank me. I figured anywhere would be better than the office.

The atmosphere's getting a little oppressive."

"Yeah, my day hasn't been all that hot either."

"So I gather. Good thing Karen Manning was there to save your ass , huh?"

Egan moved the ice pack off his cheek. "What? What did you say?"

"I'm afraid I've got a little bad news for you, Matt." He pause d uncomfortably. "Can you connect to the Internet where you are?"

Chapter Fifty.

Matt Egan narrowly avoided skidding into the back of his wife's van an d jumped from the car. As he ran toward the house, he tried to cal m himself down by picturing her sitting in the basement with he r earphones on, oblivious to the world. If he could just get lucky thi s one time .. .

When he burst through the front door, the first thing he saw was a startling shock of green hair. Of course.

The woman spun and spread her arms so that her hands touched eithe r side of the hallway. "She doesn't want to talk to you."

"Out of the way, Amy."

"Didn't you hear me? You're not welcome here!" She was able t o contain the grin trying to break through the carefully constructed rag e on her face. It was probably the greatest day of her life she got t o be involved in sticking it to her least favorite person in the worl d and had undoubtedly deluded herself into thinking that Elise would se e the error of her ways and run right into her arms.

He had to hand it to Fade or, more likely, Karen Manning. The Web sit e was a work of art. It was all there in teeth-grinding accuracy an d detail: Fade's SEAL training, his transfer to a CIA front company , narratives on his more interesting missions abroad including exhaustiv e accounts of Egan's involvement in them, his injury, Hillel, the SWAT t eam, Buckner. His entire adult life laid out in lively prose an d wrapped in a well-designed package that featured a picture of him an d Karen holding yesterday's newspaper. And then there was the name. Tha t was best part. SWATKILLER. COM.

"Last warning, Amy."

She stood her ground and stared at him with eyes that were probabl y pretty but that he'd always thought of as beady.

"I assume you looked at Fade's Web site," he said. "Was there anythin g in there about me that suggested it would be a good idea to get betwee n me and my wife?"

Her expression turned uncertain and by the time he reached her, she'd retracted her arms to let him pass.

He found Elise in Kali's room, pulling things from the closet an d stuffing them into a tiny Power pufF Girls suitcase. She didn't acknowledge him at all but his daughter did, silently moving her wid e eyes from her mother to him.

"Why don't you go play with Amy for a few minutes, honey?"

She screwed up her face.

"I know. But do it for me, okay? Just for a few minutes."

She gave him a nervous hug as she passed, glancing back at her mothe r as though she was going to get in trouble for it. Then she disappeare d through the door.

"Hello, Elise."

She didn't turn, instead shooting a furtive glance into the mirro r above Kali's dresser. She didn't seem surprised at his swollen fac e but then, why would she be? It was covered in gory detail o n SWAT KILLER

"Amy called me about it this morning," she said finally. "When I firs t looked at it, I thought it wasn't true. But truth has a funny qualit y a sound and feel all its own."

Everything he'd planned to say suddenly left his mind and he stoo d there in silence as she started packing again. After another thirt y seconds or so, she suddenly stopped.

"Come on, Matt. Deny it. Say something."

In what was undoubtedly a very carefully crafted "fuck you," everythin g Fade had written about him was factual and more or less fair. The so n of a bitch had done it on purpose left him with no room to spin a t all.

"It's all true," Egan said finally. "Every word."

She put a hand on her forehead and stared down into the open suitcas e without really seeing it. "Oh, Christ.. ." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Elise, I "

"Why didn't you tell me, Matt? How could you lie to me like this? Wha t else have you lied about? What "

"How could I? How could I drag you into all this?"

"So you're saying you did this for me? Is that a joke?"

"That's not what I meant," he said, finding it impossible to meet he r eye. "The truth is, I didn't want my past to be ... well, to be i n quite that sharp of focus."

"So you just didn't say anything? You put me and Kali in dange r without saying a word? How could you do that? What about my right t o make my own decisions and decisions for our daughter? How could yo u just take that away from me?"

"Look, I understand how much I've hurt you, Elise, but I want you t o listen very carefully. You and Kali were never in any danger.

Never."

"How can you be sure, Matt? You know what that man is capable of. He's killed children before. You .. . you sent him to do it."

It would have been nice if that bastard could have omitted a few of th e more lurid mission details from his descriptions. What could Egan ' s ay? Gee, honey, we didn't actually set out to kill children, but yo u can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

"People call you the baby killer behind my back. They didn't think I k new, but I did. I didn't care. Hell, I used to laugh about it. Jus t more of my naivete, huh, Matt? Maybe when you think one thing an d everyone else thinks something else, you should be wondering if they'r e right."

"I don't know, Elise. Maybe they are. But I'll tell you somethin g that I honestly believe: The world needs people like you to make i t worth living in. But it also needs people like me to make it possibl e to live in."

"By killing people. By going to another country and doing things t o people we would never do to our own citizens. How has that helped th e world, Matt? How has that created peace?"

It was a good question one that almost everyone in his position ha d asked once or twice.

"How many people have you killed, Matt?"

"Come on, Elise. The things Fade "

"Forget Fade. I don't want to hear about how many people you'v e ordered dead or contributed to the deaths of. I want to know how man y people you've personally killed."

He leaned back against the wall and stared down at the floor. "No. Yo u really don't."

Then the tears came. She slammed the suitcase shut and ran past hi m into the hall. He didn't bother to follow.

Elise and Kali had been gone for an hour, but the house felt like i t had been empty forever. Egan reached for the bottle of vodka on th e desk but instead picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory.

It rang a few times and then a recorded message began to play. "You'v e reached the phone of Salam al Fayed. I'm on a tri state killing spre e now, but if you leave a message after the beep I'll try to get back t o you as soon as possible."

"You'll be happy to know that Elise left me. She thinks I was riskin g her and Kali's lives by not telling her about you. Oh, and after al l these years of marriage, she finally asked me how many people I'd killed. Thanks for that, Fade. Tell you what. I'm at my house. Wh y don't you stop by. We'll have a drink and then we'll finish this thin g once and for all."

Chapter Fifty-One.

"Sir, I "

"Shut the fuck up and sit down," Darren Crenshaw said, not bothering t o hide his disgust and anger. "You know what woke me up this morning , Hillel? A phone call telling me that the entire life story of one o f our CIA assassins is plastered all over the Internet. Can you gues s what I said to that?"

Strand remained silent, resisting the urge to crane his neck around a s Crenshaw moved behind him.

"I said, 'well, get it off the damn Internet." And you know what the y told me then? That we can't. That in addition to SWATKILLER. COM, there's also SWATKILLER. I R in Iran and a SWATKILLER. SY in Syria. I t won't surprise you to know that based on the content of that Web site , neither of those countries are feeling terribly cooperative righ t now."

Strand knew this already. He'd discovered the existence of the sit e hours before Crenshaw had and tried himself to shut it down.

"Now here's what we're going to do, Hillel. We're going to forget al l the bullshit you fed me at our last meeting and we're going to star t over."

"Sir .. ." Strand said, but then had to pause when he realized tha t his mouth was too dry to speak clearly.

"Be careful," Crenshaw warned, walking around him and starting a recorder sitting on the desk. "Keep in mind that I've read every wor d on SWAT KILLER -just like everyone else in the goddamn world and I'v e got ten people researching its accuracy."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"You're aware you're being recorded?"

"Yes."

"Talk."

Strand took a deep breath, trying to control the panic that had bee n getting hold of him over the last few hours. Walking away from thi s thing unscathed was no longer a possibility. Damage control was al l that he could hope for and even that would have to be done ver y carefully. Al Fayed and that bitch Karen Manning had ended his caree r in the government and any political aspirations he might have had. Th e only question now was whether or not he could avoid prosecution.

"Salam al Fayed was highly qualified for our .. . project. The mos t qualified candidate we had, in fact. I wanted him for the job and whe n he turned us down, I had my people do some research on him to see i f there was anything we could do to change his mind."

"But Matt thought you should just let it go."

Apparently, the researchers he had working for him were doing more tha n just looking into the allegations in SWAT KILLER

"That's correct, sir. But I disagreed. I felt we needed men like a l Fayed and that we should do everything possible to get him."

"So I gather."

Strand ignored the sarcasm and continued on with the story he'd bee n crafting since he'd discovered the site.

"My people turned up the fact that al Fayed had gone to work for th e cartels and .. ." He feigned discomfort. "And that Matt had covere d up those activities. We also had some admittedly circumstantia l evidence that al Fayed might have been involved in the recent deaths o f the Ramirez brothers. So what started as a relatively straightforwar d situation became very complicated. We now had information that a l Fayed had been employed as an enforcer for the Colombians and might no w be working in that capacity inside the U. S. Based on that, we obviousl y didn't want him anymore, and the question became what do we do with ou r information?

Obviously, it wasn't a Homeland Security matter. In the end, I decide d to inform the police. Anonymously, so as not to get us involved. The n we'd just let them run with it or not as they saw fit."

"Al Fayed gives a rather detailed list of all the people he's killed,"

Crenshaw said. "Interesting how the Ramirez brothers aren't on it. I n fact, no one in the U. S. is except for those cops."

"Yes, sir. As I said, our information on that point wasn't concrete.

It may be that he wasn't involved in their deaths or he may hav e omitted those killings from the Web site to increase public sympath y for him."

"Public sympathy," Crenshaw repeated. "Right. Go on."

"The police sent an entire SWAT team because of al Fayed's militar y background and .. . well, you know what happened."

"And then you covered up your involvement."

"My involvement was pretty much nonexistent, sir. There was nothing t o cover up. I gave the police information about a criminal. That's all."

"Well, if you're such a good citizen, Hillel, why did you walk in her e a few days ago and lie through your teeth to me?"

"I made a mistake. I thought I was protecting my career. While I d on't believe I did anything wrong, I did provide the police wit h information that got a bunch of their men killed. Someone's going t o be blamed for that and I didn't want it to be me. I felt that we coul d handle the situation quickly and quietly."

"And by 'handle the situation," you mean execute al Fayed and dump hi s body on the steps of the nearest police precinct."

Strand glanced down at the recorder. "As you know, he had threatene d my life and Matt's. It wasn't our intention to execute him, but w e wanted to put an end to the threat he posed to us, to the public, t o the police, to the government.. ."

There was no question that Crenshaw would have to take decisive actio n on this issue and Strand knew that action would take one of two forms: The director could defend his organization and deny wrongdoing, or h e could admit to an abuse of power and very publicly punish anyon e involved. Strand had to make sure Crenshaw had a reasonable enoug h explanation for what had happened to make the first option the mor e attractive.

"And to do that," Crenshaw said, "you withheld information from th e police. You knew that al Fayed was still in town because you knew h e was after you. Hell, you had the cops put out an APB on him and tol d them not to approach."

"I didn't want any more of them killed "

Crenshaw actually laughed at that. "Goddamn, Hillel. I'll give yo u one thing. You're the master of spin. And on such short notice, too.

My compliments."

"It's all true, sir."

"So is everything on al Fayed's site as near as I can tell. I suppos e that brings us to Roy Buckner."

"What he wrote about Buckner is not true, sir."

"Ah, so we've found the one thing he lied about. How convenient.

Entertain me with your take on that one, Hillel."

"Al Fayed began calling Karen Manning and we thought he might try t o contact her in person. So we put someone on her."

"Roy Buckner. I've read his record."

"Yes, sir. A reasonably good man who has history with al Fayed."

"A negative history. I gather that they didn't like each other. I a lso gather that Buckner is unstable. According to your own records , Matt vetoed him for your program."

"That's correct."

"And you didn't think that was a problem."

"Honestly, sir, I thought that the Karen Manning angle was a long sho t and that Buckner would follow his orders."

Crenshaw nodded wearily. "Go on."

"Buckner called me and told me he had al Fayed. He also told me tha t he'd arrived too late to save Karen Manning."

"Was this the call you received while you were in my office lying t o me?"

Strand had assumed that Crenshaw would have pulled those phone records , but hadn't been able to come up with a graceful way to deal with th e subject.

"Yes, sir. He called when I was in your office. And then I called hi m back and told him to bring al Fayed in. He agreed and asked me to sen d someone out to get his car."

"But he told you that al Fayed had killed Karen Manning."

"Yes sir."

"Well, there's a fairly detailed transcript of Buckner's side of hi s conversation with you that includes him telling you specifically tha t Karen Manning was alive and you ordering her dead. How do you explai n that?"

"I don't know, sir. It's possible that he was saying those things int o a dead phone either before I answered or after I hung up. Or, I s uppose she could have become infatuated with al Fayed and now she's trying to justify staying with him "

"So your best explanations are that either Buckner went to grea t lengths to provide disinformation to a woman he was about to kill, o r that a former cop with an excellent record, who was working like a do g to clear her name, decided to ride off into the sunset with a doome d former SEAL."

"I really can't say what happened for sure at this point, sir."

Crenshaw finally sat down behind his desk. "Where's Matt?"

"We don't know. He isn't returning calls."

Chapter Fifty-Two.

"Dad!" Karen shouted into the phone. "Calm down! I told you, I'm fine."

"He's holding you, isn't he? He's making you say this. Is h e listening? Tell him I can get him anything he wants. Money, a privat e jet, the best lawyers in the country. Anything."

She looked across the hotel room at Fade, who was lying like a corps e in front of the television. She'd barely managed to get him out of th e car and up the stairs, though his injuries shouldn't have prevented hi m from doing it himself. He seemed to be slipping away.

"Listen to me, Dad. First of all, he's not on the phone. Second o f all, I'm perfectly fine. And third, he's not holding me here. I n fact, if it weren't for him, I'd be dead."

"What was your first dog's name?"

"Huh?"

"Tell me the truth if you're really okay and lie if you're not."

"Scruffy, Dad."

He let the air out of his lungs in a loud rush that sounded like stati c over the phone. "I've had government agents here trying to find yo u for all I know, they have this phone tapped."

"I can almost guarantee it."

"They made some threats about you being involved in disseminatin g classified information .. ."

"I'm so sorry I got you involved in this, Dad."

"Don't be silly, honey. I've already talked to the governor and gon e through this with my legal team. If they come after you I'll crucif y them."

The silent commercial playing on the TV was replaced with the directo r of Homeland Security standing in front of a podium bristling wit h microphones. Karen jumped on the bed and grabbed the remote, tappin g the volume button and then using it to jab Fade in the ribs. He opene d his eyes for a moment and then rolled away from her and closed the m again.

"Honey? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"We've been flooded with requests for interviews. We're talking abou t "

"I think it's time for me to shut up for a little while, Dad." Sh e leaned against the headboard and watched Crenshaw shuffle the papers i n front of him. "We said what we had to say on the Web site and now it's time to let this thing settle a little bit."

"I understand, but "

"I've got to go, Dad."

"Karen "

"I'm going to see you soon, though, okay?"

She turned off the phone and put a hand on Fade's side. He didn't move.

"First," Crenshaw started, "let me say that I only became aware of th e al Fayed situation yesterday when everyone else did. Since then, I'v e initiated an investigation into the allegations and statements made o n the Web site and I'm personally overseeing that investigation. Bu t it's going to take some time to sort through everything."

He paused for a moment and then looked directly into the camera. "My top priority at Homeland Security is to ensure the safety of America's citizens. But a very close second to that is protecting what thi s country stands for. Americans have given their government a great dea l of power to fight terrorism and I believe that's a sacred trust. I t ake any abuse of that trust very seriously and I will deal with it a s harshly as the law will allow."

A number of hands shot up in the audience, but he just waved the m off.

"To anticipate your questions, we do not know where Karen Manning an d Salam al Fayed are at this time. We also have no way of knowing Ms.

Manning's status by that I mean whether or not she's being held agains t her will. We are, however, doing everything we can to find them and t o ensure Ms. Manning's safety. Hillel Strand and Matt Egan have bot h been suspended pending an investigation and both are cooperating fully.

That's it."

He gathered up his things and walked off the stage, ignoring the shout s of the reporters. Karen rose to her knees on the mattress and pulle d Fade onto his back. "Wake up," she said, running a hand through hi s hair. "Fade? Can you hear me?"

He opened his eyes but she wasn't sure he really saw her.

"I'm going to ask you again to come with me, Fade. I'll do everythin g I can to help you. Who knows? We might even get you off the hook."

He smiled almost imperceptibly and she had to swipe a hand across he r face to keep a tear from falling on him.

"Fade .. ."

But there was no hope for him. They both knew it. He'd go to jail an d most likely die there, paralyzed in an infirmary bed. He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve any of it.

"What can I do to help you?" she said, wiping at her face again. "Tel l me."

He just closed his eyes, the slight smile still playing at his lips. He didn't seem to be aware of it when she leaned down and kissed him.

Karen took a few breaths, trying to steady her voice and then slid of f the bed, taking the pistol lying on the nightstand and tucking it int o the back of her pants. "I have to go now. I'm going to turn myself i n to the police and that means I'm going to have to tell them where thi s hotel is. I can stall for a little while, but you have to be gone b y morning. Did you hear me, Fade? By morning."

Chapter Fifty-Three.

The phone rang, but Egan didn't bother to reach for it. The machine i n the kitchen picked up and the voice shouting over it echoed down th e hall. "Matt! This is Darren Crenshaw. I'm about to come through you r front door and I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot me."

Egan poured himself another drink, listening to the creak of hinge s followed by footsteps in the entryway.

"So, how's your day going?" Crenshaw said as he dropped into the chai r in front of Egan's desk. He pointed to the bottle of vodka on it an d when Egan nodded, grabbed a glass and poured himself some.

"You wouldn't believe how many people I had working on finding yo u before someone thought to look here. I swear to God sometimes I wonde r if I'm just wasting my time."

Egan remained silent.

"Is Elise gone?"

He nodded and Crenshaw leaned back in his chair, sipping thoughtfull y at the drink in his hand.

"Quite a predicament Hillel's gotten us into," he said finally. "Di d you hear that Pakistan's already lodged a formal complaint with the UN a nd we're expecting at least four more countries that al Faye d mentioned in his Web site to follow suit. Apparently, the Saudis ar e so mad they don't know what to do with themselves."

"With all due respect, sir, fuck the Saudis."

Crenshaw laughed. "I couldn't agree more, though you'll never hear m e say that outside this room ... So my people are telling me tha t everything they've looked at on that site is exactly true. I've talke d to Hillel and .. . well, let's just say that man has a real future i n politics."

"If he lives that long."

Crenshaw shrugged and took another drink. "Why don't you tell me you r side of the story, Matt?"

"A little late for that, isn't it, sir?"

"You don't have anything better to do."

Egan tipped the vodka bottle into his glass and then topped of f Cren-shaw's. "Everything on SWAT KILLER that relates to Fade's missions is absolutely true. He risked his ass over and over again t o fix our problems and then he got hurt and we turned our backs on him.

I tried to get the money for the surgery he wanted, but I couldn't ge t it done."

"You can't make the bureaucracy do something it doesn't want to do , Matt. What I'm hearing is that it was a bad call on the part of th e government but that you did everything humanly possible to help th e guy."

"Someone once told me that if you fail at something it's either becaus e you weren't smart enough or you didn't try hard enough."

Crenshaw smiled. "I admire that philosophy, Matt, but we both kno w that it's bullshit. Anyway, it sounds like al Fayed figured out a wa y to get the money himself. He went to Colombia to work for Caste l Vela."

"And I knew all about it," Egan admitted. "But I buried the report s from DEA."

"Apparently not deep enough."

"No, not deep enough. Hillel had a hard-on for Fade for good reason, I s uppose .. ."

"You can't deny that he has some desirable qualities."

Egan nodded. "We went to see him at his house and he told us to fuc k off. Hillel was pretty pissed and he wouldn't let it go."

"So you told him about the Colombians?"

"No. Lauren found that. I kept my mouth shut."

"And the Ramirez brothers?"

"Complete nonsense. Hillel needed something local to get the cop s interested."

"So the plan was to frame al Fayed, get him arrested, and then get hi m off the hook."

"For a price."

"And how did you feel about all this?"

"I didn't know anything about it. And if I had been involved, you ca n be damn sure I wouldn't have sent a bunch of cops in there to arres t him. It wasn't hard to predict how he'd react. No, as far as I wa s concerned, Fade had done his fair share for his country and, frankly , wasn't physically or mentally stable enough for the job anyway."

"And that brings us to Karen Manning."

"Does it?"

"What do you know about that?"

"Same as everyone else: Hillel had Buckner watching her and he caugh t them out in the woods somewhere."

"The site says Strand ordered her dead. But he tells a differen t story. He says that Buckner told him al Fayed had already killed he r .. ."

"I couldn't say, sir."

"Speculate."

"I don't see what I can tell "

"Come on, Matt. Humor me."

Egan took another sip of his drink and looked toward the curtain s covering the window next to him. Was Fade out there? Waiting?

"Matt?"

He looked back at the general and shrugged. "Hillel had every reaso n to want her dead. He couldn't be sure what Fade had told her and i t would have been simple to make it look like he'd killed her. I s Manning telling the truth when she says that Hillel gave the order?

Sure. But, as usual, he left himself some wiggling room. Buckner ha s a history of being a loose cannon and he'll use that."

"Thin," Crenshaw said.

"Not if you back him up, sir. He's counting on that. He knows th e media and the Democrats have you under a microscope, just waiting for a story about Homeland Security turning into the new Gestapo. Hillel's been careful to leave you with enough ammunition to make it safer fo r you to defend him than to use him as a whipping boy. And even better , he's given you me a man who looked the other way while one of ou r operatives helped destroy our youth with cocaine. A nice littl e diversion, if you play it right."

"So, you end up in jail and Hillel gets a medal for doing his civi c duty."

"If I live that long."

Crenshaw scooted his chair around so he could tilt it back and lea n against the wall. "You know what pisses me off, Matt? I'll tell you.

It's when people assume that because I was career military I'm som e sort of fascist jerk-off who wants to declare martial law and star t shooting Arabs on sight. Every morning, when I turn on my computer, a quote by Ben Franklin comes up on the screen. You know what it says?

It says "Anyone who would give up liberty for safety deserves neither."

I've got a bunch of politicians running around the world scaring an d pissing off everybody they can and then looking to me to protect the m from all those pissed-off and scared people. And I've got Americans a little too willing to let the government play games with their right s in return for some bullshit promise that we'll keep them out of harm's way."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Why do you?"

"Because I'm good at it? Because somebody's got to? Sometimes I'm no t sure."

Crenshaw fell silent for a few minutes and finished his drink. Finally , he set his empty glass on the windowsill and leaned forward, droppin g the front legs of his chair to the floor with a loud crack. "You fucke d up here, Matt. I have to say I'm disappointed in you. I don't mea n about the Colombian thing I understand that sometimes you just have t o stand behind your men. I'm disappointed that you didn't come to me o n this."

"What would you have done, sir? You'd have put together a team tha t wouldn't make the same mistakes as the police. They'd have eithe r executed Fade or buried him in a brig somewhere for what's left of hi s life. He deserved better."

"Yeah, he did. But you weren't going to be able to give him better.

And now, on top of everything else, I've got SWATKILLER. COM to dea l with."

"Yes, sir."

"So now Strand thinks I've got no choice but to stand behind him an d all his bullshit about the Ramirez brothers and Roy Buckner. To le t him walk away after perverting the authority the American people hav e so unwisely given us."

"As much as I hate to say it, sir, it seems like your best option."

"And sacrifice you up as a diversion, right?"

"Yes, sir."

Crenshaw stood and walked around the den, examining the record industr y memorabilia on the walls. "What would you say if I told you tha t Hillel had sent Roy Buckner a number of encrypted e-mails and that som e of them are extremely incriminating?"

Egan didn't respond immediately, trying to work through what he'd jus t heard. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't think I understand."

"What's to understand? We have a whole trail of communications betwee n the two from Buckner's laptop all definitely sent from Strand's computer with his encryption signature."

"Uh .. ."

"Cat got your tongue?"

"Well, sir, encrypted e-mail is a good way to communicate I use i t myself sometimes. But it sort of presupposes that the person you'r e sending the mail to is smart enough to delete it. I can't imagin e Hillel would make an obvious mistake like that. In fact, I'm findin g it hard to believe that Buckner even owned a computer."

Crenshaw turned away from a particularly glowing review of Elise's las t CD and faced him. "You're right. He didn't. The whole thing's a complete fabrication."

"Sir?"

"You know Strand's assistant, Lauren? Bright girl. Ambitious. Helpe d us create the whole thing."

"I'm sorry, sir. You've lost me."

"I have no interest in spending the next five years of my life i n hearings over this thing. Besides, I've been wanting to make a clea r statement regarding how I feel about us overstepping our bounds that i t won't be tolerated."

Egan wasn't sure what to say.

"Are you shocked, Matt?"

"I guess I am. And a little confused."

"Understandable, I suppose."

Crenshaw started for the door, but then paused. "So are you going t o just sit here in your house getting drunk and waiting for al Fayed t o get around to killing you?"

"I honestly don't know."

"You should have shot him in Baltimore, Matt. It was a stupi d mistake." He tapped a picture of Kali on the wall. "You have a lot o f responsibilities."

"I wanted to. But it turned out to be harder than I thought."

Crenshaw nodded. "I understand that your wife and daughter are at he r mother's house. Why don't you get on the phone and convince her you'r e going to make this up to her? Then take a nice trip. I had tha t doctor who was going to do the surgery on al Fayed look at SWAT KILLER

Assuming Fade's being honest about the numbness and paralysis he's experiencing, the doc says that it'll be one week, maybe two at th e outside before he's in a wheelchair. Or worse."

Egan let out a long breath and stared down at the glass in his hand.

"I'm going to do what I can to protect you," Crenshaw said, startin g down the hall. "Talented people are damn near impossible to find thes e days."

Chapter Fifty-Four.

How long had Karen been gone? He didn't really know the drone of th e television just seemed endless and the heavy curtains were pulle d closed, leaving nothing but unwavering artificial light. Fade let hi s head loll to the left and looked for the gun that had been on th e nightstand. Gone. Clever girl. She'd forced him into a decision: e ither get up and do something or lie there and wait for the cops t o drag him away.

His eyes wanted to close again but he wouldn't let them, instead tryin g to focus on the slow collapse of the ceiling above. At first he jus t felt like he was drowning, but the more he concentrated, the more h e seemed to come back to life.

He'd finally reached the dead end that had been coming for so long.

Karen would give the police the address of this hotel and a detaile d description of his car. Matt would have to give up his aliases an d credit cards. Nearly everyone in the world knew what he looked lik e from the photograph on the Web site. And his hundred-yard dash was no w measured in minutes, not seconds.

Fade swung his feet to the floor and tried to stand but his right le g collapsed, sending his knee into the sharp edge of the nightstand. No sensation at all. He rammed it against the unyielding wood again, eve n harder, and listened to the dull, empty thud it made. A moment later , he found himself hammering his knee repeatedly into the small table , trying to force himself to feel something that would prove he was stil l alive.

Finally, he fell back on the bed, trying to focus on his labore d breathing and not the numbness that was inching its way through hi s body.

The volume of the television suddenly increased and he looked over a t the screen as the newscaster was replaced by a woman in her fiftie s speaking through intermittent sobs.

"We just want our daughter home safe," she got out before being force d to use a crinkled hanky to wipe her nose. "She's such a wonderfu l girl. She has so many people who love her. She's studying nursing ..

. All she ever wanted to do was help people .. ."

Fade found himself mesmerized by the woman's unwavering intensity a s she told stories of Elizabeth Henrich's childhood, her love of animals , the plans she'd had for her life. Why couldn't he turn away?

Finally, the scene changed and the camera focused on a reporte r standing outside a sprawling building surrounded with people shoutin g and pumping their fists in the air. He recognized it as the hospita l where he'd almost put an end to Hillel Strand.

"Harold Logner, known widely as the Collector, is still a patient o f the orthopedic ward of this hospital. He's still refusing to give th e whereabouts of Elizabeth Henrich and continues to insist on bein g provided sanctuary in Brazil. A spokesman for the Brazilian embass y has publicly stated that his country will agree to take Mr. Logner i f they're requested to do so. So far, no reaction at all from th e American authorities."

"Are we expecting one soon?" came the disembodied voice of the anchor.

"My understanding is that we are running out of time."

"That's absolutely correct. By Mr. Logner's own estimate, Elizabet h Henrich can only survive for another few days. Having said that, th e sense here is that he's just playing a game that he knows it's unlikel y that the Brazilians would refuse extradition after Ms. Henrich i s found."

"And the protestors behind you? What's your sense of their mood?"

"Confusion, really. I've talked with quite a few of them and ther e seems to be no consensus about what should be done. It's more a venting of frustration and anger than anything else."

Fade listened for a while longer, then reached for the phone lying nex t to him and retrieved his messages. Nothing at all from Karen, just th e normal mob of reporters, crazies, and cops. There were a fe w exceptions toward the end, though. General Crenshaw had personall y called and guaranteed his safety if he were to turn himself in and Mat t Egan had left a message saying that his wife had left and inviting hi m to come by his house and finish things.

He dropped the phone back on the bed and returned his attention to th e gory history of the Collector murders. He and Harold Logner had a lo t in common. All they did was cause pain. The world would be a bette r place if neither of them had ever been born.

Fade finally pushed himself off the bed again and hobbled to th e closet, digging through one of the drawers inside and coming up with a small sewing kit. He took both that and his laptop to a desk in th e corner of the room and after a few near misses, managed to use th e hotel's data line to get onto the Internet.

His research skills had been steadily improving and it took him a little less than two hours to find a phone number that mos t nine-year-olds could have turned up in a few minutes. He stood again , using his chair as a crutch, and crawled back onto the bed. There wa s a half-full water glass on the nightstand and he smashed it against th e headboard as he dialed his phone.

"Hello?" An older woman's voice, understandably suspicious sounding.

"May I speak to Elise, please," Fade said, using one of the large r pieces of broken glass to cut his right pant leg off just above th e knee.

"She isn't here. Who is this?"

"Salam al Fayed."

She hung up and he hit redial.

"I'm going to call the police," the woman said when she picked u p again. "What are you thinking, call "

"Ma'am! Please! I really am Salam al Fayed. Look, I wrote on my We b site that I met Elise at her concert a few days ago. What I didn't sa y is that I was wearing a white shirt with a mandarin collar, jeans, an d a pair of glasses with blue lenses. Could you tell her that , please?"

Another brief silence. "I'm not saying she's here, you understand. Bu t hold on."

Fade examined his knee while he waited. It had already started t o swell and turn yellow from his tantrum earlier and he used his inde x finger to poke at his kneecap, trying to determine if it was broken.

Not that it really mattered.

"Hello?" The voice was uncharacteristically timid, but stil l unmistakable.. "Hi, Elise."

"How did you get this number?" she said, obviously realizing that i f he had the phone number, he probably had the address, too.

"Well, first, I asked myself where would a woman in your situation go.

Back to her folks, right? So I pulled up your bio on your recor d company's site and found out where you were from originally. Then I p ulled up copies of your CD jackets and enlarged them enough that I c ould see the names of the people you thanked. And there were you r parents' names, right near the top. Then all I had to do was "

"What do you want?"

He held the piece of glass in his hand like a pencil and used it to cu t a deep arc in the side of his knee. It was strange not to be able t o feel anything. Kind of like slicing into a piece of fruit.

"I heard one of your songs on the radio yesterday. And today there wa s concert footage of you on the news .. ."

"My record company says they're printing another twenty-five thousan d of my CDs. They tell me my last one's ranked number ten on Amazon.

It's amazing what a murderous psychopath can do for your career."

"I'm not really a psychopath, you know."

"I was referring to my husband."

"Oh. Right."

He probably should have threaded the damn needle before he'd slice d through his knee. The blood was running down his shin in sheets and h e hadn't even gotten close to hitting the eye yet. It wasn't going t o get any easier if he started getting light-headed.

"I heard you left him."

"What do you want, Mr. al Fayed?"

"I guess I want a chance to explain some things that might be hard fo r you to understand."

She didn't respond, but she didn't hang up either.

"First of all, you and your daughter were never in any danger. Never.

Matt knew that for certain. In fact, not only were you not in danger , he and I agreed that nothing would happen to him in front of either yo u or your daughter. I would never, under any circumstances, break m y word on that."

He finally succeeded with the thread and tied a knot in the end befor e he started carefully sewing his knee back together. "But I'm guessin g you already knew that."

Again, no response.

"Come on, Elise. I have all your CDs. If there's one thing tha t defines you, it's that you're committed to what you believe is th e truth. You don't look away from it."

"I know he wouldn't put us in danger," she admitted finally.

"So then you left him because he's killed people. But you knew tha t before, too."

"Matt's my one blind spot. He's my concession to hypocrisy."

"Everyone should be lucky enough to have that, don't you think?

Something or someone that has the power to make you lie to yourself?"

He bent the needle against the desk, making it slightly better adapte d to the work. Not entirely sanitary, but infection wasn't an overridin g concern at this point.

"Let me tell you a little bit about the world Matt and I live in. It's a place where governments punish a man for adultery by making him watc h his sister being gang-raped. A place where a father cuts hi s children's arms off to put in a stew because some witch doctor told hi m it would make him invincible in battle. I've seen people partiall y skinned and covered in battery acid because of a difference in opinio n on political systems that neither person really understood. I've me t people who would kill every man, woman, and child on earth without a second thought because they think God wants them to. It's a worl d where there are no good guys the people the press portrays as innocen t victims really aren't. They're just poorly armed. If they had th e firepower, they'd be out there doing the exact same thing being done t o them."

He paused for a moment to bite off the end of the thread. "What Mat t and I have done might not have been right. And it might have done mor e harm than good. But we were trying to help. It sounds kind of stupi d when I say it out loud, but we were."

The silence following his speech stretched out a long time.

"How's your relationship to the truth, Mr. al Fayed?"

"What?"

"You say Matt didn't stand behind you when you were hurt. Even with m y blind spots, I know that's not who he is."

Fade smiled weakly. "I think maybe I needed someone to blame and h e was the only person with the strength to take it. Matt did what h e could for me."

"You have no right to kill my husband, Mr. al Fayed."

"I was never really going to. I was so angry about .. . well, abou t everything. I wonder now if, in the back of my mind, I didn't want i t to come out the other way. If I didn't want him to kill me. To hav e to live with that for the rest of his life."

"And now?"

"And now I'm tired. Of being angry. Of being scared. Of wonderin g what might have been if everything hadn't gotten so fucked up."

He leaned forward and ran a finger over the stitches in his knee. No t overly artistic, but the effect was pretty convincing. "You're goin g to go back to him, right, Elise?"

For a few seconds he didn't think she was going to answer. Finally , "Like I said, he's my one blind spot."

Chapter Fifty-five.

The activity in the office had become increasingly feverish over th e past few hours and now encompassed everyone. The birth o f SWVTKILLER. COM had changed everything. The entire staff was now full y aware of what was happening and were reporting directly to Darre n Crenshaw's office. An outside team of investigators was workin g desperately to confirm the facts on al Fayed's Web site while Bil l Fraiser and Lauren McCall had been moved to a group charged wit h finding him.

Hillel Strand was the only person with no role at all. He had no ide a where Matt Egan was or what progress the various task forces had made.

He was still living at the office but, for all intents and purposes , was completely isolated. When he stepped through his door, the peopl e in the hallway went silent, staring at him as he walked stiffly to th e copy room or the bathroom or wherever, and not speaking again until h e was back behind closed doors.

Worse than the silence from his staff was the silence from the rest o f the establishment. His friends and political allies had stoppe d returning his calls and the upper management at Homeland Security wa s acting as though he didn't exist. No reprimands, no debriefings, n o comments to the press. Nothing.

Strand sat and reached for his coffee mug, one of the only things lef t on his desk. His file cabinets, his computer, his disks even hi s notepad and calendar had been gathered up and hauled away. It wouldn't do them any good, though. He'd written nothing down that woul d contradict the story he'd created. He told himself over and over tha t he'd played this thing the best it could be played, though it didn't seem to be doing anything to ease the pain of the ulcer he could fee l forming.

There was no way Crenshaw could possibly win this fight. The strain o f trying to break through the reasonable doubt Strand had blankete d himself in would crack the very foundations of the organization. He would have no choice but to do everything he could to make this thin g go away. Well, one choice. He could try to coerce a confession b y firing Strand and putting him out on the same streets traveled by Sala m al Fayed. The lawyer Strand had hired didn't seem concerned abou t that, though. It would be so obvious a ploy as to make any admission s completely retractable.

The bottom line was that he was going to be all right. It would tak e some time for all this to pass, and his career in the government wa s over, but he was going to be all right. Strand closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind go blank and his muscles slack. He was goin g to be all right.

A moment later, his door was thrown open and he jumped to his feet a s Darren Crenshaw strode in, followed by two men Strand didn't recognize.

Both were dressed in inexpensive suits and one was overweight enough t o be breathing hard from having to chase Crenshaw at the half-run tha t was his normal pace.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Strand said, as Crenshaw took a positio n by the wall and the men with him planted themselves in the center o f the room.

"Hillel Strand?" one of them said, digging into his pocket.

"Yes."

He produced a badge, holding it out so that Strand could see. I t identified him as a cop. Just a plain cop.

"Sir, you're under arrest for obstruction of justice and the attempte d murder of Karen Manning and Salam al Fayed."

"What? What the hell are you talk "

"Sir, if you could step out from behind the desk, please."

Strand looked over at Crenshaw. "What the hell is going on?"

"We found the e-mails you sent to Roy Buckner, Hillel. He didn't delete them."

"What are you talking about? I never sent e-mails to Buckner!"

Crenshaw just shook his head disappointedly as one of the cops can e around and grabbed Strand by the arm. He pulled back and a momen t later found himself pinned to his desk with his hands held firml y behind him. Then there was the cold metal against his wrists and th e unmistakable ratcheting of handcuffs. When he was jerked back uprigh t again, Crenshaw had already turned to leave.

"I know things that could be very damaging," Strand shouted after him , beginning to panic. "You can't just turn me over to the goddam n police." ; Crenshaw stopped in the doorway but didn't look back. "What do yo u know, Hillel? What do you know that isn't already plastered all ove r the fucking Internet?"

Chapter Fifty-Six.

In light of the growing mob outside and Fade's own recent antics , security at the hospital was understandably tight. Metal detector s that had sprung up at the entrance precluded bringing any meaningfu l weapons and everyone seemed to be hyper aware of what was going o n around them. Fade kept his head down, trying to get used to moving o n the crutches he'd bought, and avoiding eye contact with the cops an d security guards wandering the halls. He was wearing a Lakers basebal l hat that, combined with a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses, gave hi m the generic look of a thirty-something with a self-destructive penchan t for pickup games. The key to the rather lame disguise, though, was hi s knee. Black and blue, swollen and stitched, it was clearly visibl e beneath his cutoff pants and drew the eye of nearly all the nonmedica l personnel that passed by.

He stopped with his back to a security camera and traced a finger alon g a color-coded map of the hospital, locating the orthopedics ward an d starting off down the hall again.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he hopped into a crowded elevator on one leg , whacking no fewer than three people with his backpack as he did so. Hi s normal MO would have been to rappel down the side of the building, o r have a helicopter drop him in, or at the very least, slink up the bac k stairs. In his current condition, though, riding the elevator wa s about as athletic as he wanted to get. It was a frontal assault o r nothing.

Not surprisingly, when the elevator doors slid open and Fade nearl y fell out into the orthopedics ward, there was a cop watching.

"Who are you here to see?"

"Dr. Pritchard." He'd gotten the name off the hospital's Web site.

"Do you have an appointment?" the cop asked, tearing his gaze awa y from Fade's bulbous knee and looking down at the clipboard in hi s hand.

"I don't know. I just talked to him about a half an hour ago and tol d him what my knee looked like and he said to meet him here. He thinks I m ight have an infection."

"Looks nasty."

"You have no idea."

"Okay. Go ahead."

Fade started down the hall, but then paused and craned his neck around.

"Hey. Is this where you guys are keeping that Collector freak? There's like a thousand people outside .. ."

The cop just frowned and sat down in the folding chair facing th e elevator.

The layout turned out to be almost ideal for his purposes. There wa s really only one way to go and the hall had enough twists and turns t o put the various security people out of sight of one another. He finally came around the last corner and headed toward a set o f solid-looking double doors with a beefy, short-necked cop sitting nex t to them. He stood as Fade crutched forward, focusing predictably o n his damaged knee.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm supposed to be meeting Dr. Pritchard. But honestly, I'm not sur e I'm in the right place."

"I can guarantee you're not. You need to go back to the desk yo u passed and talk to the nurse."

Fade had briefly toyed with the idea of having Isidro convert his ne w crutches into twelve-gauge shotguns. The incredibly high cool factor , though, hadn't quite outweighed the obvious impracticalities. So instead, he'd spent some time experimenting with his right leg , determining exactly what it would and would not do. He figured he ha d about 40 percent power and 30 percent maneuverability, but only fo r short bursts. It was just enough to give his utterly inelegant plan a remote chance of succeeding.

As he turned around, Fade pretended to lose his balance, dropping on e of his crutches in a maneuver he'd rehearsed in the full-length mirro r at his hotel. When the cop bent to pick it up, Fade swung the othe r one into the back of his head. He went down hard, letting out a grun t that seemed impossibly loud in the empty hallway. Fade tensed an d looked back down the corridor but no one materialized. His good karm a for this type of thing continued to hold.

Leaning over with a little difficulty, he took the cop's gun an d stuffed it into his waistband, grabbed his crutch, and then pushe d through the doors.

The hall he entered wasn't as long as he expected, extending abou t forty feet before it dead-ended into a window that looked out over th e Virginia suburbs. This time there were two cops, both of whom jerke d from their positions guarding the last door on the right and starte d immediately toward him.

"Hi," Fade said, actually having to raise his voice a bit to be hear d over the drone of the protestors outside. "I'm here to meet Dr.

Pritchard. He's supposed to examine my knee."

They both stopped and Fade continued forward until he was within a normal conversational distance. "Do you know which room I'm suppose d to wait in?"

They both seemed a bit confused and one of them called to their no w unconscious companion. "Hey, Andy? What's up with this?"

Fade reached behind him and pulled the gun from his waistband before i t became obvious that their colleague wasn't answering. One cop wisel y raised his hands but the other stared malevolently, swinging his arm t o within inches of his holster.

"You don't want to be fucking around here, boy," he said. "You'r e gonna get yourself hurt."

"We'll see," Fade said, pushing off his hat and glasses. "You guy s have probably heard of me. My name's Salam al Fayed."

The recognition was clear in both their faces and the man who'd threatened him suddenly lost some of his resolve.

"Now, I don't particularly want to kill either one of you, but then I'm not really dead set against it, either." He pointed to the man on th e left. "Why don't we start with you? Take your gun out, nice and easy , and lay it on the floor."

He didn't move and Fade nodded toward the door they'd been guarding. "I a dmire your courage and your sense of duty, but I want you to thin k hard about this. Do you want to die for him?"

A few moments later, both men's guns were on the ground and they wer e facing the wall with their hands laced on top of their heads. Fad e took his backpack off, dropped their guns inside, and pulled out a doorstop with carpet tape on the bottom.

Keeping a close eye on his two prisoners, he moved next to the doo r they'd been guarding and took a few deep breaths. It looked thic k enough to be fairly soundproof, but that certainly wasn't guaranteed.

The bottom line was that there was only one way to know what wa s waiting for him on the other side. He threw the door open and jumpe d inside as gracefully as he could, slamming it closed behind him an d crouching low to stay out of the line of the window at the far side o f the room.

"Who the hell are you?" Harold Logner said from the bed he was secure d to. Fade ignored the question, panning the room with his gun stretche d out in front of him and confirming that there was no one else there.

How convenient.

When he was satisfied that they were alone, he peeled the paper off th e carpet tape on the doorstop and shoved it under the door. A quick tes t confirmed that it was completely jammed.

"Who the hell are you?" Logner repeated as Fade skirted the wall an d pulled the curtains closed, leaving the room in a deep gloom. Ther e was a narrow ledge outside that someone could probably use to approac h the window but they'd have to be more or less suicidal.

"What are you doing?"

Fade turned, confirming that Logner's arms and unbroken leg wer e secured to the bed with heavy leather straps, and pulled a roll of duc t tape from his pack. He ran a strip along the bottom of the door an d then went to work on the air vents. The ceiling was solid not dro p panel so he wouldn't have to worry about that.

Finally, he used his crutch to smash a video camera bolted to the wal l and then pushed the bed against the opposite wall while Logner tugge d halfheartedly at his bonds.

Fade was reasonably certain he'd left no cracks that the police coul d get fiber optic cameras through, but it still made sense to stay ou t from in front of the window.

"You can't do this," Logner said. "I'm severely injured! I demand t o talk to Captain Pickering. Do you hear me? Right now!"

Fade scanned the room silently, trying to find anything he'd missed. By the time he decided the area was as secure as it was going to get, hi s eyes had fully adjusted to the semidarkness.

"Did you hear me? I want to talk to Captain Pickering! This is no t part of our agreement!"

"No, Harold. I guess it's not."

Fade had met more than his share of psychos in his life Serb mas s murderers, African strongmen, Arab terrorists and they all had on e thing in common: They were surprisingly unimpressive.

This guy took the cake, though. He was wearing appropriately blood-re d silk pajamas that seemed unwilling to conform to his thin, angular bod y and that gave his head a turtlelike quality. His hair was meticulousl y trimmed and his nails appeared to have been recently manicured.

Apparently, he was milking his position for all it was worth.

"Who are you?"

His voice had risen to almost a screech and his eyebrows had crinkle d in a way that made Fade think of a child gearing up for a tantrum. A l ittle disappointing, really. Karen had been right. Just a patheti c little man who liked to sneak up behind women.

"I'm the guy who's been stealing all your publicity. My name's Sala m al Fayed. But why don't you call me Fade."

Logner watched him carefully as he grabbed a stool and limped u p alongside the bed.

"You're the one who killed all those police. The one with the Web sit e .. ."

"That's me," Fade said as the phone started ringing. He pushed himsel f off the stool again and crawled across the floor until he could ge t hold of the cord.

"What are you doing here?" Logner whined as Fade pulled the phone of f a small nightstand, catching it just before it hit the floor.

"Hello? Hello? You still there?" Fade said, rolling onto his back.

"This is Captain Seymore Pickering. Who am I speaking to?"

"You already know the answer to that question, don't you, Seymore?"

"I suppose I do. Tell me what's happening in there, Mr. Fayed."

"It's al Fay Oh, never mind. The truth is, I feel bad about killin g your guys and I figured I'd try to make it up to you."

"We don't want anyone to get hurt, Mr. al Fayed. What can we do t o disarm this situation?"

"I'm glad you asked that. I want you to find Karen Manning and Mat t Egan and send them up here. Let's start there."

"What are you going to give me in return? I need some kind of gestur e .. ."

Logner was straining forward as far as his bonds would allow, cranin g his neck to see. Fade flipped him off.

"Well, the way I figure it, you want two things: to save Elizabet h Henrich and kill me. Not necessarily in that order. Let's just sa y I'm willing to work with you on both of those."

He hung up and crawled back to the stool, dragging the phone along wit h him.

"What do you want?" Logner said again, jerking his right arm uselessl y against the strap holding it.

"You repeat yourself a lot, don't you, Harold? Here's the deal. I w ant to know where the girl is."

"What? What do you care? You're a cop killer. I read all about you.

The government abandoned you .. . What's Elizabeth Henrich to you?"

"She's not really anything to me. But I've decided to go out on a positive note. Maybe you should consider doing the same. They sa y confession's good for the soul, you know? Now would be a good time t o find out if they're right."

Logner stared directly into Fade's eyes for a long time, his ja w clenched tightly shut, and then, suddenly, he relaxed. Easing bac k into his pillow, he smiled serenely at the ceiling. "I guess you'r e not as tough as everyone says you are, eh, Mr. Salam al Fayed? The y got you, didn't they? This is all a trick. They're going to give yo u a break on your sentence and all you have to do is scare me into givin g up the girl. Good try. Now why don't you run along and get me a nic e cup of hot milk. It's time for my nap."

Fade grinned. "I admire your optimism, Harold, but what are th e chances that I'd let a bunch of cops take me alive? Or that they'd even want to?"

The phone at his feet rang again and he picked up. "Yeah?"

"We've talked to both Egan and Karen Manning. They're on their way."

"Great work, Captain. Send them up when they get here. Don't d o anything stupid, though, okay? If you just keep cool and sit on you r hands for a couple of hours this is going to turn out to be the bes t day of your life. You have my word."

He replaced the handset and looked down at Logner again. "Now wher e were we? The girl, right?"

"Fuck you. Get out of my room."

Fade shrugged and pulled a plastic Bic from his pocket. "The lighte r or the girl. You've got three seconds to decide. One .. ."

Logner seemed uncertain for a moment and then just looked away, makin g a show of ignoring Fade, apparently prepared to bet a fair amount tha t this was all an elaborate plot dreamed up by the police.

"Two .. . Three."

His scream was incredibly piercing like a little girl's. He thrashe d wildly on the bed, arching his back and swinging his broken le g violently back and forth on the cable holding it. Fade stuck a han d over his right ear to block out the noise and used the other to kee p the flame against Logner's wrist. When he finally withdrew th e lighter, Logner's screams degenerated into choking sobs.

"You should count yourself lucky that I couldn't get a set of plier s through the metal detectors," Fade said, ignoring the phone that ha d started ringing again. "Now let's try one more time. Where's th e girl? Count of three. One .. ."

Logner's eyes shot open. "Stop!"

"Two .. ."

"Wait! She's "

This time the screams were even louder. He should have brought som e cotton balls or something the guy could shatter glass.

"Okay," Fade said, pulling the lighter away again. "You know th e question. One .. ."

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you! Please! You have to stop."

The phone was still ringing and Fade picked up. "Captain?"

"What's happening in there? We heard screams. Is everyone al l right?"

"Mr. Logner has something he wants to talk to you about." Fade hel d the phone up to the man's ear and he whimpered an address in it.

"Did you get that?" Fade said. "You should find the girl there. I'v e got a TV in here and I'm going to turn it on. When I see her, I'l l give myself up."

"I need a doctor," Logner said weakly. "Please, get me a doctor."

Fade covered the phone's mouthpiece. "Shut up."

"We're sending someone right now, Mr. al Fayed. I want you to jus t calm down and relax. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Nope. Just get the girl on TV." He reached over and grabbed the fl y to Logner's pajamas, ripping it open and holding the lighter beneat h his scrotum. "Because if I don't see her in an hour, it's going to ge t really ugly in here." He watched Logner, who was breathing like a woman in Lamaze class, and began to slowly replace the handset.

"Wait!" Logner shouted.

"Is there something on your mind, Harold? Maybe you got that addres s confused? Because you should make sure you're remembering it right.

It's probably the most important thing you'll ever do."

Logner flailed back and forth for a moment, venting his frustration an d pain, then looked over at the phone in Fade's hand. "Let me ... let m e talk to him again."

Chapter Fifty-Seven.

It was quite an operation. At the far end of the corridor, there wer e two SWAT men crouched behind a steel barrier, rifles trained on a closed door. The one window had been covered with blankets , undoubtedly to keep the press from filming through it and broadcastin g what they saw on the television Fade had access to.

The two men having a hushed conversation in the middle of the hallwa y didn't seem to notice Egan until he spoke.

"Would one of you be Captain Pickering? I'm Matt." The younger of th e two men melted away as the other stuck out his hand.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, Mr. Egan."

"What's going "

The sound of swinging doors being thrown open drowned him out and h e turned to watch Karen Manning burst through them. Her pace faltered a bit when she recognized him.

"I never had a chance to thank you for intervening on my part," Ega n said when she got close enough.

"He wasn't going to kill you. He was ... he was just angry."

Egan nodded and she focused on Pickering. "What's the situation , Captain?"

"You tell me."

"Pardon?"

"Are you going to stand there and say that you didn't put al Fayed u p to this?"

She looked down at the floor for a moment, giving the appearance o f perfect calm, then suddenly lunged.

While Pickering did seem like kind of an asshole, Egan hadn't bee n expecting a physical attack and he barely managed to get between the m before Karen's hands made contact with the man's throat. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked and almost managed to get aroun d Egan before he could drive her back.

"If I ever hear even a hint in the press that I had something to d o with this, my family will do whatever it has to make sure that you'r e out of a job and spending your entire life savings fighting lawsuits.

Do you understand me, you officious little prick? Do you?"

She tried to get by Egan again and he maneuvered behind her, gettin g his arms around her waist and leaning into her ear. "Relax, Karen. He isn't going to do shit. You've beaten him. You beat all of us."

She seemed to calm down a bit and Egan released her. Pickering wa s visibly shaken.

"Well, Captain, I think it's safe to say that Karen doesn't have an y information on the subject. Maybe you could help us out."

He didn't answer immediately, obviously trying to calculate a way t o regain the upper hand, but finally resigned himself to the fact tha t his momentum was irretrievably stalled. "Al Fayed stormed in here a couple hours ago, gave one of my men a concussion, pulled a gun on tw o more, then locked himself in Harold Logner's room."

"Why?" Karen said.

"He's torturing him to get information on Elizabeth Henrich's whereabouts."

"What?" she said, looking down the hall at the heavily guarded door.

"Why would he do that?"

"We have no idea."

"Is it working?" Egan asked. Pickering glared at him but it seeme d like a relevant question.

"We've been given an address and we're in the process of following up.

No word yet."

Egan let out a long breath and then looked over at Karen. "Are you u p for this?"

She nodded.

"Okay, Captain. Call him and tell him we're coming in. And get thos e men away from the door. I've got enough problems without gettin g caught in a crossfire."

"Are you armed?"

"Huh?"

"We don't need anyone taking weapons in there that al Fayed could ge t his hands on."

Egan laughed. "I'm guessing he's already got your men's guns. But th e answer to your question is no. I'm not. Karen?"

"No."

Pickering motioned toward two bulletproof vests lying on the floor.

Egan shook his head. "I'll pass."

"Okay, Fade! Truce, right? If you want to start shooting, I need t o go back and get a gun," Egan yelled as the door swung open. Th e curtains had been pulled and it was dark enough inside that it was har d to make out detail.

"I just don't know how I'd live with myself if I shot your ass," cam e the answer. Predictably, Fade was up against the wall behind the ope n door.

Karen pushed by and went in first, obviously not worried. Ega n followed, but a little more cautiously. When he was fully inside, th e door slammed closed and Fade shoved a doorstop beneath it.

"You've got to help me," a weak voice behind Egan pleaded. "I've bee n badly burned. I'm in horrible .. . pain."

"Take a fucking aspirin," Karen said, eyeing Fade's knee as he limpe d over to a stool and lowered himself carefully onto it.

"What the hell's going on?" she said, nodding toward the quietl y sobbing man strapped to the bed. "You told me you didn't care abou t him or those women. What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I got to thinking that maybe I was wrong."

"Please," Logner moaned. "You have to help me .. ."

The unmistakable stench of burned hair and flesh was hanging in the ai r and Egan walked over to the bed, squinting through the gloom to find a small circle of charred skin on Logner's wrist. "That's it? That's what you're whining about? I've gotten worse making pasta."

"Low threshold for pain," Fade said. "Which is going to turn into a real problem for him if the address he gave the cops is bogus."

"So you're going to just sit here and light parts of him on fire unti l they find the girl?" Karen said.

"Pretty much. Yeah."

"And after that?"

"I haven't really thought that far ahead. So, how are things with you r wife, Matt?"

Egan sat down in a vinyl easy chair near the base of the bed. "Sh e called me from the road. She and Kali are coming home."

A wide grin spread across Fade's face. "That's great, man.

Congratulations."

"Well, we have some things to work out, but I think we'll be okay. I'm not sure yet how living with everything out in the open like this i s going to work. Who knew it would be possible for our relationship t o get any more complicated?"

"Complicated's okay. And besides, now you're rich. I hear the store s can't keep her records on the shelves."

Egan let out a quiet snort. "We haven't really talked about it, but I c an pretty much guarantee that she sees this as blood money and it's all going to go to save some endangered African snail or something."

"Can I make a suggestion?"

"Go ahead."

"You probably shouldn't point out that all that money just ends up i n the pockets of gun dealers and Swiss bankers."

"Don't worry. I've learned my lesson."

"Uh, excuse me," Karen interrupted. "Could we focus for a minute o n the fact that you've barricaded yourself in a fifteen-by-fifteen roo m surrounded by a bunch of very motivated police snipers."

Fade shook his head slowly. "She's so practical. And kind of a badass. How can you not love her?"

"Fade, I'm serious .. ."

"And what about you, Karen?" he said. "Has Daddy managed to mak e everything all better?"

She frowned at his wording but then just shrugged. "Yeah, I guess h e has. It turns out that there's almost nothing an army of lawyers , publicity people, and politicians can't accomplish. I'm going to be o n Larry King tomorrow night." Her voice seemed to lose its strength an d she looked down at the floor. "You should watch it."

"Maybe I will."

The silence that ensued lasted almost a minute.

"Jesus," Fade said finally, standing and hobbling around the room. "I b rought you two here because you're my only real friends in the world.

This was supposed to be fun."

"Hillel wanted to send a cake," Egan said.

Fade laughed. "And how is that piece of shit? I gotta tell you, I r eally regret not having an opportunity to put a bullet through hi s skull."

"Doesn't really matter. He's fucked. Actually, he's in jail righ t now. If you play your cards right, maybe you two could b e cellmates."

"Yeah, right. Somehow I don't think they're looking to put me in on e of those country club places."

"It's not a country club, Fade. Just plain old jail. Crenshaw blew a gasket when all this came out. He says he's going to personally mak e sure Strand ends up in a maximum-security prison for the rest of hi s life. And you know the general. What he wants, he gets."

Fade nodded and kept limping around the room for no apparent reason , seeming to become more detached and distant with every awkwar d movement. Finally, he dug into a backpack and pulled out a larg e Ziploc full of neatly bundled hundred-dollar bills.

"The rest of my money," he said, tossing it to Karen. "It's not much , but why don't you split it up between the families of those guys I k illed. There's also a disk in there the very last installment of SWAT

KILLER Maybe you could post it for me."

"Fade. I ..."

"And I want you to go by my shop. That hope chest is still ther e waiting for you. Fill it up for when you find that guy who's secur e enough to marry you."

She didn't answer and it was too dark for Egan to make out he r expression clearly, but he could see her wipe a sleeve across bot h cheeks.

"These are for Elise," Fade said, tossing Egan a set of car keys. "A w oman like that shouldn't have to drive around in a minivan. You migh t want to take it to a mechanic and have a little work done before yo u give it to her, though ..."

Egan opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the ringing o f the phone. Fade limped excitedly toward it and picked up. "Hello?"

He jabbed a finger toward the TV and Karen turned it on, flippin g channels until she landed on one depicting a young woman wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by police. One of the cops stepped aside , allowing the camera to focus on her face.

Fade covered the phone's mouthpiece. "Is that her?"

Karen rose to her tiptoes, examined the screen for a moment and the n nodded.

"Now you have her!" Logner screamed. "I need a doctor! Get me a doctor!"

"I thought I told you to shut up," Fade said, replacing the handset an d pulling a gun from his waistband. Karen jumped for his hand, makin g contact a split second after a bullet slammed into Logner's chest. Ega n didn't move as she shoved Fade back hard enough to nearly topple him.

"What the hell was that?" she shouted, running up to the bed an d looking down at the bleeding hole in Logner's breast bone. Egan pushe d himself up on the arms of his chair to get a better angle, but the n settled back into the cushion when it became clear that Logner hadn't survived.

Karen came to the same conclusion a moment later and turned back towar d Fade just as the phone started ringing. "What were you thinking? Yo u just killed a helpless man tied to a bed! Are you crazy? How is thi s going to help your case?"

He shrugged, the simple motion seeming to take nearly all his strength.

"Not the worst thing I've ever done, huh, Matt?"

Egan didn't answer, instead, concentrating on Fade as he wandere d across the room and stopped in front of the window.

"Kind of dreary in here," he said, reaching for the closed curtains an d throwing them open. "Maybe a little light.. ."

Even with everything he knew about her, Egan still underestimated ho w quickly Karen could react. He threw himself out of the chair an d barely managed to get hold of her and drag her to the floor.

She was still thrashing wildly when the first round hit Fade betwee n his chest and right shoulder. Egan pressed his face into her back an d forced her head down as the air filled with shattered glass. A t hick-sounding thud that seemed to shake the room marked the impact o f the second round. When Egan looked up again, Fade was fallin g backward, eyes closed and arms spread wide.

Karen managed to swing an elbow at Egan's head and he was forced t o release her in order to dodge it. She crawled forward, ignoring th e glass cutting her knees, and dragged Fade from the snipers' line o f fire. For a moment she tried to stop the bleeding, but then just fel l back against the wall.

Egan went back to his chair and put his head in his hands, taking deep , measured breaths. When he finally looked up again, Karen was starin g at him with eyes full of tears and accusation.

He shook his head meaninglessly. "How did you want him to die?"

FPIIflGUF

Epilogue.

SWATKILLER. COM

Final Entry Looking back, I think a lot of the things I've done were wrong. I hop e the fact that I believed in them-that I believed I was helping-wil l make people remember me more fondly than maybe I deserve.

I wish there had been time to balance the scales. But there jus t wasn't . Salam al Faye d Kyle Mills lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he spends his tim e skiing, rock climbing, and writing books. He is the author of si x previous novels. Free Fall, Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Sphere o f Influence and Smoke Screen are all available from Hodder paperbacks.

HODDER & STOUGHTON w ww . Madaboutbooks . Com Designed by Edward Bettiso n

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